To Mourn A Mischief That Is Past
by Darkness Be Mine
Summary: Sequel to 'O, I Am Fortune's Fool'. Rory, now at college and far from the innocent she once had been, had never expected to see him again, but Tristan's reappearance in her life wasn't supposed to make things harder...
1. We Meet Again

Rory exited her dorm room, turning to lock it behind her before strolling off through the halls of the large school. Yale to her, had become almost like a second home. She couldn't seem to remember a time when she had been going to school anywhere else, and her time here had to be generating some of the best memories of her life.

She knew that a great part of this had something to do with Logan Huntzberger. The guy was more than good looking, she found herself thinking, remembering that handsome face – crisp blonde hair, and dark brown eyes – once again, and wondering how the hell she found herself in situations like this.

Sure it wasn't such a big deal. After all, she had her schoolwork, and this took up a great deal of her time, not to mention she had friends and family that needed visiting back in the small town of Stars Hollow. This of course, left her with little time left to do much else, and almost no time at all for a relationship. Being with Logan just helped her keep herself free from any unnecessary emotional drama or entanglements of any kind. And besides… this was college. It was how it was supposed to be, right?

Still, that couldn't help change the fact that seeing Logan out with another girl had hurt. Seeing him act with _that_ girl just how he acted with her seemed too painful to really dwell on too long, and she had to admit that she'd been thinking quite seriously about breaking the whole thing off. Even those times when Logan was around, and treating her like a complete goddess didn't make up for this constant feeling of paranoia and pain when she realised that he was with other girls… that perhaps she wasn't even his favourite.

It was stupid really, that she was allowing all this to happen. It seemed almost hypocritical, considering the many times she'd sneered at the behaviour of people like Logan and herself when she'd been back at school. She'd always asked herself why they couldn't get themselves some self-respect and break it all off. Now she knew just why it was so hard. Sometimes things just weren't as easy as they seemed. Logan, just like Tristan had been, was…

She stopped dead; that phrase 'Speak of the devil' had never seemed more pertinent than it did now, and she stared in stunned amazement at the young man who had just walked out a classroom ahead of her, his tall figure incredibly familiar, but surely not... It couldn't be him.

Hurrying forward a little, Rory was hesitant in calling out to him. What if it wasn't him? She didn't want to make a fool of herself after all. She'd seen that kind of thing enough in movies and on TV to know that it was a pretty humiliating situation. Still… she was almost positive, and after all, if it wasn't him, he wouldn't turn around, right?

"Tristan?"

She almost died of fright when the young man's confident step faltered a little, turning slightly to look who had called him, before he stopped dead when his eyes met those of his ex-girlfriend.

"Rory? No way! What the hell are you doing here?"

Rory just kept looking up at him in disbelief, shaking her head slowly from side to side as though trying to either shake this image of him – which couldn't _possibly_ be real – out of her head, or come to terms with the fact that he was really here.

"What am I doing here? I _go_ here," she explained with another shake of her head, her surprise still echoing throughout her voice. "What the hell are _you_ doing here?"

Tristan just shrugged. "I just… I transferred from Oxford," he explained with a bit of a shrug. "In the end I wasn't a fan of England, and I missed my friends and family too much."

"You missed your family?" Rory asked, disbelieving this fact. She was very well aware of just what Tristan thought about his family. Having dated him for a year back at school, she had learnt quite well that his parents cared little for him apart from the fact that he do well in his life so as not to shame them, and he didn't have any brothers and sisters that she knew about.

"Yeah. Mostly my grandfather. He's a pretty good guy. It's hard to comprehend that he and my father are related."

Rory just nodded in stunned disbelief, still marvelling at just how surreal it was standing here in his company. She hadn't seen him for almost two years, since she'd graduated from Chilton, and she had begun to be comfortable in the knowledge that she might never see him again. There had been rumours he'd moved overseas to study – rumours that now appeared to be true – and she'd been more than okay with him being gone from her life. Still… now, with him being back, it seemed things just weren't meant to be that easy.

"But what about you?" he asked, indicating the campus with a slight inclination of his head, his dark blue eyes never moving from hers. "I thought you were going to Harvard."

Rory just smiled faintly, shrugging only slightly when he pointed this out to her. It was true that he'd thought she was going to Harvard. Indeed, for the longest time, she'd dreamed of going to Harvard, and the idea of attending any other university had simply been ludicrous. "I don't know. Faced with the decision, Mum and I made a list, and Yale came out on top."

Tristan just nodded slowly, blue eyes steady on hers, and for a long moment neither of them spoke a word. It wasn't _exactly_ uncomfortable, but Rory had to admit that it was also not quite her idea of a fun day. Seeing him here at a time in her life like this… It was so far from desirable that she wanted to cry.

"Sorry for crashing your party."

Rory almost jumped in surprise when he spoke again, and she quickly shook her head to deny that she didn't want him there. Granted, she far from _wanted_ him anywhere near her, because it was a well-known fact amongst those who knew her that Tristan DuGrey had always had a less than desirable effect on her emotions.

"No! It's totally fine. Don't worry about it," she offered hurriedly, both of them knowing just how false such reassurances were. "It was just a surprise seeing you here, that's all."

"You're not kidding," he offered quietly, before glancing briefly over his shoulder as though there was somewhere that he had to be.

Offering him a brief smile, she pointed behind him to the hall she'd been making her way to before she'd spotted him. "Well… I really should be going. I'm supposed to be meeting someone," she offered, neglecting to mention the name of this someone – Logan, but Tristan didn't need to know that – before waving a brief goodbye. "I'll see you around?"

Tristan just nodded, watching her in silence as she turned and hurried off.

* * *

Rory had to admit that knowing Tristan now attended Yale with her made something odd arise in her stomach. More than anything else, she knew that it was composed mostly of awkwardness, because things had been _far_ from friendly when they'd met up that morning. Then of course, she knew there was some part of her that was annoyed at him for showing up and proceeding to make her school not her most favourite place in the world. And, of course, that almost miniscule part of her that admitted that she was still attracted to the guy.

She didn't think that she'd ever get over it, of course. Tristan was more than a little good looking, and immeasurably charming when he wanted to be, and she knew that if he took a shot, she'd be hard-pressed to fight that attraction that she felt for him. It was hard to deny, after all, when a good looking guy like Tristan flirted his ass off with you.

Another problem was the one that would arise if Tristan discovered just what it was she was doing with her love life at the moment. There had been a time where she'd harpooned him for doing just what it was that she was doing right now, although in a slightly different sense. He'd been the player, whereas in her situation she was more the victim. She knew of course, that should he find out, he'd have brought up the fact that she'd settled for Logan but not for him. Perhaps he'd be a little jealous?

She shook those thoughts from her head with a short sniff, shaking her head slowly in dismay at the thought that slipped into her mind. Yeah right. Tristan wasn't jealous. They'd dated for one year, and that was several years ago now. Even when he'd been approaching at the end of the year, she'd seen that he still felt _something_ for her, but none of that had been present in those blue eyes this time around. Just surprise. And some sort of dismay.

Fighting against the urge to pull the whole situation apart for the tenth time that week, she dismissed all her thoughts to the back of her mind and sidled up to the young man in the black leather jacket. "Hey Logan."

"Ace!" he greeted her, turning to pull her into a quick hug, before pulling away again, an arm draped casually over her shoulders. "Colin here was just talking about you."

Colin's eyes narrowed slightly, before shaking his head in dismay. "A party," he offered with a nod, holding out a small piece of paper to her, the details written clearly in black ink. "My birthday. Invite only, but that's a plus one." The way he said it, and the short, almost uncomfortable looks he was shooting at Logan told Rory quite clearly that Logan was _not_ going to invite her, and he would _not_ be her plus one. That familiar feeling of rising hurt within her, only fuelled by the arm around her shoulders, rose up where once again, she fought it off; only this time, her thoughts were not diverted to something else. This time, she wanted to get back at him for what he was doing to her. Revenge in a sense.

"That's great, Colin," she offered him with a bright smile, her blue eyes sparkling merrily. "Thanks. I know just who to bring." And she did, her mind almost maliciously adding the finishing touches on her plan. "You guys'll love him."


	2. A Party and a Payback

It took a lot of work, but eventually Rory bumped into Tristan again. It seemed as though he was either avoiding her, or their classes didn't match in the slightest. Whatever the case, it was late in the week that she stumbled across him again as he walked across one of the main courtyards of the school. Hoping to catch his eye, she hurried towards him, waving slightly in an attempt to get him attention. Successful, the young man looked up, a frown of consternation crossing his face when he saw her. She saw the hesitation suddenly visible in his face and step, and knew that he was debating turning the other way and pretending he hadn't seen her. Something had really changed him, she realised, something to do with Oxford, or if not the school, than something that had happened whilst he was over there.

"Hey Tristan," she greeted him with a small smile, offering the briefest of waves and trying to pretend that she hadn't seen the expression on his face. "How's the new school treating you?"

Tristan just watched her momentarily as he continued to approach, stopping in front of her and pondering her question with a thoughtful expression. "Not so bad, actually. The campus is pretty great, and the people are friendly enough." Then he shrugged. "The course quality is right up there with Oxford's, so I don't think I'm losing anything by the transfer."

Rory just nodded for a moment, before suddenly realising that she had no idea what it was that he was studying. For some reason they'd never really discussed future plans when they'd been dating; mostly because Tristan knew what she wanted to do, and for some reason she'd never really thought to ask him. His future plans had never really seemed to be all that important to him, but he'd gotten into two different Ivy League schools, so he must've had _some_ plan where his future was concerned. "So what were you studying?"

Tristan managed a slight show of amusement at her question, and Rory realised that he must've made the connection to their time dating also. "Medicine," he explained with a nod, and his smile widened at her show of surprise. "Yeah… that's the reaction I got from most people when I told them."

Rory just nodded, still stunned. She'd always known that Tristan was a smart guy, but she'd never even considered that he'd gotten marks high enough to study medicine at both Oxford and Yale. The sheer thought of it was almost staggering, and she attempted to not look _too_ incredibly surprised at the news. After all, she needed him to accept her invitation.

It had entered her mind, of course, that she was just using Tristan. That her desire to spend time with him was only because she wanted to make Logan jealous, to help the other boy realise that he needed and wanted her, and that if he wasn't going to settle for just her, then she wasn't about to settle either.

"Wow. That's great."

Tristan just nodded, shifting his feet almost uncomfortably, and glancing off to one side momentarily as though trying to figure out an excuse to escape that she might actually buy. Realising that things were awkward enough without her attempting to keep him there longer than he really wanted to be, she laid out her offer.

"So I know you're probably pretty busy, what with studying and everything," she explained, her blue eyes catching his and feeling that familiar leap in her stomach that she'd always gotten around him. _That_ could be a problem. "And I don't want to keep you, but I was just wondering if you wanted to come to this party," and she offered the invitation that Colin had given her.

Tristan accepted the paper, his eyes holding hers as his brows tugged together slightly over his nose, before they dropped to study the invite that she'd given him. "Colin McCrae?" he asked, one brow sliding smoothly to his forehead, something about the curiosity on his face and in his eyes darker than she could remember seeing in him, even at his most jealous. Something had definitely changed. "Your boyfriend?"

Rory shook her head hurriedly, the sudden expression of disgust on her face making a small smile of amusement appear suddenly on Tristan's. She felt her stomach flip slightly at the sight of it, but she pushed her physical attraction for him aside – because she admitted to herself that this was all that it was – and hurriedly replied to his comment. "No. Friend of a friend, really," she explained with a nod.

Tristan just nodded slowly, his eyes falling back to the invite in his hand, before handing it back and shaking his head. "You know what, Rory. I can't. I'm pretty busy at the moment, and most of my free time is spent studying. Maybe some other time?" he asked, and for a moment Rory began to nod, accepting his excuse. Then she realised that this was just what it was. An excuse and nothing more.

"Oh… I don't mean for us to go together. Nothing like that," and she shook her head, extending the paper again. He looked at it briefly, but didn't take it. "I just… Colin gave me a plus one, and everyone I know has already been invited." She shrugged. "I just thought it'd be good, you know? You're new here, and don't know anyone…"

Her eyes held his and he looked steadily back, his eyes guarded and hesitant as they studied hers for any signs that she might be having him on. Then he shrugged with a bit of a sigh, accepting the piece of paper she still held out for him. "Sure. Why not? Do you…" and he hesitated, studying her carefully again for a moment, before shaking off his hesitation. "Do you need a ride? Or did you want to meet there?"

Rory looked startled at his question. "I… uh… You're the med student. We can take my car if you like."

Tristan managed to look excessively amused at her comment, one corner of his lips tugging up into a slight smile. "Come on, Rory," he spoke, the laughter in his voice doing something to her stomach that she wasn't sure she particularly liked. "It's still me, remember. Money isn't an issue here. I'll drive," he told her, before he offered her one last smile – this one more polite than amused and not nearly so flattering on his face – and shook the piece of paper on a level with her eyes. "I'll meet you eight o'clock, outside the Stirling Memorial Library; York Street. You know where that is, right?" and once again his eyes were flashing in amusement as he remembered just how studious she'd been back in high school.

She fixed him with an equally playful glare, her blue eyes sparkling at him, something that managed to sober the expression on his face. Feeling uncomfortable around him once again, Rory just nodded. "Sure. I'll see you at eight."

* * *

Rory had to admit that when he drove up in the sleek, black convertible that it would feel absolutely incredible arriving at Colin's party in such a car, with a guy like Tristan. It was perhaps, no more perfect if she could have planned it down to a tee. She did remember, of course, the fact that Tristan had received the car after graduating from Chilton, but had assumed – and she was unsure as to why she had, given the DuGrey family money – that he'd sold it before going overseas. Then again, perhaps he _had_ sold it, and this one before her was merely a replacement. Whatever the case, she didn't really mind. It was a _gorgeous_ car.

"You going to get in?" his voice interrupted her thoughts, amusement shining once again in those dark blue eyes, and she found herself once again admiring just how fabulously good looking the guy was, before he jerked his head, using the gesture to beckon her over. "Or are you just going to stand there staring at it all day?" he asked, a twist to his lips that made her stomach flip suddenly. "I don't bite."

"Much," Rory shot back playfully, one brow sliding to her forehead in a pointed expression as she closed the distance between herself and the car, sliding into the beautiful leather seats and making it obvious that she snuggling back into the soft material. "God… This is incredible!" she announced happily, distracting the frown that had momentarily appeared on Tristan's face from her earlier comment, and replacing it with another large grin.

"Glad you like it."

* * *

Logan would admit freely to himself that he felt incredibly uncomfortable the _minute_ that Rory Gilmore arrived at the party. It was not the fact that he was here with another girl, of course, nor was it that this other girl was a friend of the bright blue-eyed young woman. Most young men would have been put off by the circumstances surrounding the party, but this was not Logan's dilemma. The thing that was _really_ bothering him, that had his stomach tied in knots and refusing to come right, was the fact that Rory, true to her word, had attended to honour Colin's birthday, and had brought with her perhaps one of the most intimidating 'plus ones' he'd ever seen.

He didn't know what his problem was, of course. He and Rory had something casual. That's what both had decided that they wanted, she had even suggested it, and it had suited his personality and social life perfectly. Now of course, seeing her here with _him_, Logan wasn't so sure that he was still okay with this. The two seemed close, at least in a friendly way, and despite never having actually seen them _together_ before, Logan seemed to sense that there was something more there. Whoever this guy was, Rory knew him very well, and was exceedingly comfortable in his presence, introducing him to her many friends who had attended, included in which were some of his.

Convenient.

"Who's the guy?" he asked Finn, sidling up to the Australian with raised brows, ignoring for the moment the redhead he was with – he'd already said hello earlier, and she was far too involved in a conversation with an equally gorgeous blonde to really notice him.

Finn looked over at his friend, before glancing in the direction of Rory, his eyes contemplative. "Threatened by him, are you?"

Logan just shook his head with a casual air, a brief frown for the intimation that he might actually be jealous, before replying. "No. I just… I haven't seen him around. Who is he?"

"DuGrey," Finn informed him, losing interest in the conversation already, his attention keen on the blonde young woman with whom his date was conversing. "Some guy Rory knew back in school."

"Ex-boyfriend?"

Finn just nodded, accepting Logan's words as truth. "Yeah. Apparently they dated about a year, and then broke up when things didn't work out. He went to England to study for a year, and," he shrugged. "Now he's back, and they're hanging out. Catching up."

Logan just nodded, watching Rory's interaction with the tall blonde. He _was_ threatened by the other guy, he knew. He wasn't as calm as he should have been about this, and despite knowing just how hypocritical it was for him to not want Rory with other guys… well, he couldn't really help it. He felt it nonetheless.

"Tristan," Finn offered suddenly, as though the name had suddenly occurred to him, and Logan shot him an amused look of question. "The guy's name," the Australian continued. "Rory's date. Tristan DuGrey."

"Date? Would you even call it that?" Logan asked thoughtfully, unaware of the jealousy that was beginning to show once again on his face. "They're just hanging out, after all."

Finn just chuckled. "Oh yeah. You're completely unaffected by this, aren't you?" he asked sarcastically, brows risen on his forehead as he turned his attention once again onto his friend; interested now by a situation that had meant very little seconds before. After all; it wasn't very often that Logan Huntzberger felt threatened by anyone, and less likely was he to be jealous of a guy with one of his girls… and yet here he was. Both threatened and jealous, and Finn couldn't help but enjoy every minute of it.

Tristan just shot his friend a stern look, but Finn just chuckled at the expression, and Logan shook it off with a sigh of dismay. "And what if I am?" he asked snappily, his temper getting the best of him, already strained as it was.

"Nothing," Finn answered, throwing his hands up in a sign of surrender. "Just an observation."

"DuGrey?" Logan spoke the name thoughtfully, another frown tugging at his lips. "Where have I heard that name before?"

Finn just shrugged. "I think they're big money out Rory's way," he offered, shrugging briefly when Logan shot him another dark look. "Probably fair decent competition for _your_ parents, if I remember correctly." And when Logan's expression only darkened, Finn continued hurriedly. "I think they own several law firms. Understated family, though. Not big in the press, unlike yours," and Finn had to chuckle at the unintended pun.

"Great," Logan murmured to himself as once again Finn lost interest and drifted away with his date and the blonde who'd joined them, an arm around both shoulders. "That makes me feel _so_ much better." Basically, in a nutshell, this guy was a catch, and he and Rory had history.

He could be in some serious trouble.

* * *

It wasn't long in Tristan's company that Rory felt herself beginning to relax once again. Sure, the guy had changed, but the basics were still there. He was still Tristan DuGrey, he was still interested in the same things – although not, it seemed, her – and he fell easily into conversation about Chilton and memories of their friends there.

"What happened to Paris?" Tristan asked about halfway through the night, brows rising on his forehead in question, dark blue eyes moving to catch hers once again. "Where'd she go after the whole debate debacle?" A small smile tugged at one corner of his lips at Rory's laugh of remembrance.

"Oh… She's here too," she explained with a nod, and laughed again when his eyes widened in surprise. "I actually wouldn't be surprised if she's floating around here somewhere," she explained, looking around as though trying to spot her friend. "She's in my dorm."

Tristan couldn't help the smile of amusement that twisted his lips at that, eyes flashing in teasing amusement. "And how's that going for you?"

"Considering I'm one of her best friends here, DuGrey, I'd say she's coping pretty well."

Tristan's smile this time was one of happy greeting, and he turned to greet the young woman he'd known for most of his life. "Paris Gellar. Small world."

"Hey DuGrey. Back to torture us all, are you? Make sure we live horrid lives, living in fear of some kind of teasing remark or cheap shot?"

Tristan just shrugged with a grin. "Wouldn't have it any other way."

Paris returned the grin, moving to give him a hug, something he accepted with barely a pause, pulling the young woman into a tight embrace.

"It's been too long," she offered, eyes studying the face that hadn't changed much in the two years they'd been apart. Other than slight aging – he certainly looked and acted more mature than he had – and the mysterious darkness about him, Tristan DuGrey hadn't changed much at all. "How was Oxford?"

That dark flash crossed his eyes once again, the sign that Rory had guessed had to do with hiding something from them. Something had happened to him in Oxford, something big that had made him move back to America; something he didn't want anyone to know. Whatever it was, Rory knew that it had changed him significantly, whether for better or worse, she wasn't sure.

"Oxford was fine. I did miss home though. It's great to see you again."

Paris nodded, offering a big smile, before glancing over her shoulder and beckoning someone closer. "Oh, Tristan. I'd like you to meet Doyle; my boyfriend."

"Boyfriend?" Tristan asked with a smile, offering the young man a hand to shake; a hand that Doyle took immediately, acting confidence, when the two young women knew that he was feeling anything but around this guy he'd never heard of; a guy who was dauntingly good looking and obviously knew Paris well.

"Yeah. Better than what Rory's got," Paris offered with a grin – an expression that faltered when Tristan frowned, and Rory shook her head in sudden panic, before sighing in resignation when the words were out. "I… I mean… You know what, Doyle. I think I saw Monica over there. Let's go say hi," and so saying, she dragged the young man away, both Rory and Tristan hearing Doyle's faint complaining as he was dragged off through the crowd.

"But you don't even _like_ Monica!"

"So…" Rory began, unsure as to what to say now in the suddenly awkward silence that dominated the two, and Tristan glanced down at her in surprise.

"You want to talk about it?" he asked, brows risen on his forehead, something in his eyes that she couldn't _quite_ identify.

"Honestly? Not really."

Tristan just nodded thoughtfully at her words, the slight disappointment that shone in his eyes telling her what that earlier expression had been. Interest. A keen interest to know just what it was that Paris had been talking about. He'd realised almost immediately from those words that Rory too had changed from their time in school; they were both different. Older.

He just shrugged then, dismissing the whole thing with that simple gesture. "Your prerogative. Your business."

"Yeah?" she asked, surprised by his words, once again realising that Tristan really _had_ changed since high school. There had been a time when he wouldn't have let the thing rest until he'd discovered just what it was that Paris had been talking about.

He just shrugged again. "Sure." Then he grinned almost wickedly at her, sliding an arm casually around her shoulders for the first time that evening and pulling her gently to his side; hugging her briefly. "Doesn't mean I don't _want_ to know…"

And with a cry of dismay, her eyes narrowing in playful anger, Rory shoved him away.


	3. Will It Work?

Rory wouldn't lie. The whole situation was more than awkward. She didn't know what the guy was playing at, but he seemed to be at least _somewhat_ interested in embarrassing the hell out of her. That or just making her feel uncomfortable, which she refused to let show on her face. Logan had been the one who'd wanted to come here with someone else; she wasn't going to be made to feel uncomfortable for bringing someone else also. That was just stupid.

"Tristan DuGrey, this is Logan Huntzberger," she introduced the two, watching in silence a moment as they shook hands. Then she indicated Tristan, her eyes on Logan as she continued. "Tristan and I go way back. My first year at Chilton. He was…"

"The guy who gave her and her boyfriend complete and utter hell," Tristan cut in with a smile, the arm he still had around Rory's shoulders squeezing her briefly.

"Boyfriend?" Logan asked, confusion entering his dark eyes. "But I thought you two…"

Rory had to laugh at him confusion. It was clear that Logan had heard the news that she and Tristan had been an item back at school, but hadn't actually any clue as to the details of this. "No… We weren't together until _after_ I broke up with Dean."

Tristan looked a little hesitant for a moment, a cheeky grin tugging at his lips as he replied to that statement. "Actually… Not _entirely_ true," he spoke finally, making Rory's brows twitch together in confusion. "There _was_ that time in the classroom, after Romeo and Juliet…"

Now Rory's eyes narrowed. "Oh what? When you physically _dragged_ me into the room and stuck your tongue down my throat before I could even blink? I _hardly_ think that counts."

Tristan just shrugged with a grin, eyes sparkling merrily. "Well you _did_ kiss me back, knowing _perfectly_ well that it _wasn't_ your boyfriend."

"That's because…" and Rory hesitated momentarily, wondering for the first time in a long time why it _really_ was that she'd returned that kiss. More than likely, her subconscious mind acknowledged the fact that she was attracted to the guy, and had just acted. "It was just for a second, and then…"

"You verbally tore me apart. I know," Tristan replied, grinning again seconds later. "But I won out in the end. You and Dean broke up a short while later."

Rory glared at him. "Yeah… Through unfair tactics and broken promises," she shot back, blue eyes glaring at him in a playfully angry way.

Tristan just shrugged. "But in the end, things worked out okay."

"What? You mean us breaking up a year after we got together and then not really speaking for the next few years?"

Tristan just shot her a wicked grin. "And you're saying that's not okay?"

With a cry of outrage, Rory ducked out from under his arm and pushed him roughly away, noticing at the same time that Logan was watching her with a dark sort of intensity, even as he chuckled at the interaction between the two.

"So you guys are pretty close." It was a statement of fact, and Rory couldn't really gauge what it was that Logan was thinking or feeling at that precise moment.

Tristan just nodded in answer to the guy's question, either not seeing that Logan was almost glaring as he watched the two, or not really bothered by that fact. And why should he be? Rory thought to herself. He doesn't know about Logan and me.

"And you and Rory are… casual?" and Rory felt her mouth drop open in surprise at Tristan's question to the other boy, Logan too looking a little startled by the suddenness of the question, his eyes moving to Rory as though accusing her of telling the guy. A quick shrug later, and Logan knew that Tristan had figured it all out for himself.

"How'd…"

"I guess?" he finished for the shorter of the two, and Logan nodded, frowning in irritation at being cut off. Tristan continued seconds later. "Well mostly due to the fact that I did exactly the same thing in high school. It's kind of easy to pick it when you the know what to look for."

Logan didn't reply to this, unsure at that precise moment as to whether the guy had meant his words as an insult or whether he was just stating a fact.

"I just didn't know Rory was into that kind of relationship."

Rory just shrugged slightly when both sets of brown and blue eyes moved to fasten on her. She struggled to maintain her composure, and frowned up at Tristan. "I'm kind of over the whole serious thing. It hasn't worked so well for me in the past."

Tristan shrugged. "Oh, I don't know about that. Sure, we were a prime example of an imperfect fit and bad timing, but that doesn't mean serious relationships didn't work for you. After all, you and Dean got along pretty well. Where's he these days?"

"Tristan, Dean's married."

For the first time in a long while, Rory saw Tristan's fabulous mask slip, shock and no small amount of stunned surprise entering his eyes. It was clear that the news took him completely unawares; that the idea of Dean married was almost ludicrous to him. "Dean's _married_?" he asked, and when she nodded again, he whistled low in his throat. "Bagboy; married. Who'd have believed it?"

"What? Surprised that someone would _want_ to marry him?" Rory asked, a frown tugging at her lips. Despite the fact that she and Dean hadn't been together for several years now, they were still good friends, and despite not finding an affinity with his wife, she knew that Lindsay loved Dean, and that was all that mattered.

"No… I'm just surprised he married someone who wasn't… well… _you_," Tristan explained, and Logan frowned at the comment, realising not for the first time that day that there was a whole part of Rory's life that he simply didn't belong in; didn't know anything about. He didn't like the fact that this Tristan guy seemed to know so much about it; seemed to fit so seamlessly into both her past and present lives.

"Oh come on! It wasn't like that," Rory sighed with a shake of her head, hardly believing that they were back having this conversation again, granted without a great deal of the animosity that had been there last time they'd gone through this. "Dean and I were just friends."

"Rory… The guy was in love with you the _whole_ time we were dating. I didn't think he'd _ever_ get past it. When did he and his wife happen?"

Rory thought about it, trying to remember when the relationship between Dean and Lindsay had begun. "I'm not sure," she replied, shrugging. "Sometime just after we broke up, I think," she offered, before shrugging again. "What does that matter?"

Tristan just shook his head, dismissing the whole thing moments later. "It's not important. Well I'm happy for him, I suppose. He's obviously done better than the rest of us, having someone he obviously loves and trusts that much. Tell him congratulations next time you see him."

There was something in the way that he said it that made Rory take special notice, her bright blue eyes studying his face carefully for any sign of just what it was that was bothering him. She knew he didn't want to talk about it, of course. It was obvious from the way that he ducked out of every single conversation that involved Oxford. He seemed to also duck out of any conversation involving his family, but that wasn't completely surprising, considering just how much he disliked those he called parents. Still, considering just how much he changed in some ways, she had determined not to discount anything.

Logan just laughed at the guy's comment, his dark eyes narrowing slightly in suspicion as he replied – the shorter of the two men seemed to think Tristan was taking a personal shot at his dating habits. "I personally think the guy's crazy. Who wants to settle down at our age, after all? Where's the fun in that?"

Tristan's gaze now found itself riveted on the face of the other young man, his eyes narrowing only slightly in annoyance at words he considered far from okay, given the other young man's relationship – or lack thereof – with Rory. "Let me assure you, Mr Huntzberger," Tristan began; his voice slow and quiet, as though making sure his words would sink in. Logan's eyes narrowed at the tone, but he didn't respond for the moment, allowing Tristan time to finish. "That if you continue on like you are, you're going to end up with nothing."

Rory frowned when Logan snorted in sudden amusement. "What? You think that if I continue with this dating several girls at once, that my dad's suddenly going to go broke? That or cut me off?" he asked, and suddenly Tristan's seriousness had disappeared in one of those very familiar mood changes Rory recognised almost instantly from their time together so long ago.

"You don't understand," Tristan stated matter-of-factly, as though no one were about to dispute the fact, shaking his head slowly with another quiet chuckle. "Still… One day I assure you that you're going to realise that money and influence aren't everything in life. I just hope you come to realise that before it's too late."

Rory knew from the dangerously narrowed eyes that Logan didn't enjoy being called shallow, and she had to admit that Tristan's comment, even for his current mysterious darkness, seemed a little harsh to her. It was clear enough that Logan was about to say something in reply to that when Tristan spoke again, effectively cutting the other young man off before he could begin, turning to face Rory.

"Hey Mary…" and Rory was surprised to hear her high school nickname, but obviously not quite as surprised as Logan, who's brows rose suddenly to his forehead. "I think I'm going to head off. You still want a ride back? Or did you want to stick around?"

The question was asked without guile, but still Rory felt as though she were being asked to choose between the two. Had it really been a choice, she knew immediately that she would have chosen to stay. After all, she and Tristan… that had been ages ago. It was over now. Yet she knew too that Logan was here with a date, and _not_ going home with Tristan would effectively ruin her whole plan in inviting the guy here tonight. And besides, the more time she spent in the young man's company, the better able she would be to figure out just what it was that was up with him.

"I'm ready to go. Just let me grab my purse and say goodbye to Colin," she offered, giving Logan a brief wave of farewell – far from their usual parting affection – and then made her way through the crowd to find her purse.

Standing there alone with the shorter young man, Tristan couldn't help but notice that the guy didn't seem to like him. It seemed as though Rory's plan inviting him here tonight – he wasn't a _complete_ idiot, after all – had been more than effective. It was then that Logan asked a question that tugged a smug smile onto Tristan's lips.

"Mary?" he queried, one brow sliding back to his forehead in question. "Trust me, the girl's past _that_ stage of her life."

Tristan just shrugged, his smug grin not dimming even slightly – to Logan's confusion – at the insinuation that Logan and Rory were sleeping together. "Force of habit," he informed the guy. "When I _first_ met her, it described her to a tee." And Tristan winked amusedly at the young man, Logan instantly catching what it was the guy was implying with that comment, his frown darkening significantly.

It was then that Rory returned, beaming at the two boys as she approached, offering Logan one last parting smile and a short wave, before, with another of his smug grins, Tristan led the young woman away.

Logan just watched them go; glowering darkly.

* * *

"Your plan worked, by the way," Tristan offered; his eyes fixed on the road as he manoeuvred the car skilfully through the traffic – not that there was too much of it at this hour of the night.

Rory looked over to him in surprise, her dark hair whipping about her face – she'd insisted that they drive with the roof down – as she watched him carefully. "What?"

"Don't play coy, Mary," and she frowned at the nickname. "I'm not stupid. I know what you were doing, and don't worry. I totally get it."

She looked doubly surprised at that, brows rising to her forehead, her eyes doubting his comment even as she hoped it to be the truth. "You do?"

Tristan just shrugged, glancing at her briefly, before his blue eyes moved once again to the road. "Sure. I guess I'm right in assuming this is the first time you've done a relationship like this?"

Rory nodded, looking away, feeling nothing if not uncomfortable discussing her love life with a guy who used to be a huge part of it. She still remembered what it was like to be with Tristan, after all. Like you were the centre of the universe. It was hard not to, she knew, especially considering he was sitting right beside her, attracting all those memories; all of them rising to the surface of her mind.

"So then it's perfectly natural," he explained with a shrug. "I'm guessing that you were out one day and saw Logan with another girl, right? It felt weird, and upsetting, and you wanted to try get back at him?"

Rory nodded, dumbfounded for a moment that he had guessed it so correctly, before remembering his explanation to Logan. He'd done the whole thing before in high school, after all, and no doubt one or more of those girls he'd dated had tried just the same thing on him.

"Does it work?"

A grin pulled at his lips now, his eyes sparkling in amusement as he glanced briefly at her once again. "Depends who you're dealing with, and just how much he likes you. With me…" and he shrugged. "How'd you think I ended up dating Summer, and then you?"

Now Rory frowned. "But we weren't _doing_ the casual thing," she pointed out. "So how could my flirting with some other guy do _anything_?"

Tristan just chuckled at that, slowing down as he turned the car into Yale's campus, his grin deepening a moment. "Because you, Rory, by _not_ being interested in me, managed to steal all my attention." And he shrugged. "And before you, it was the same with Summer. She knew that I wasn't _only_ with her, so she decided to go out and do the same thing. I really liked her, so I guess I took notice and _did_ something about it."

"And you think this is going to work with Logan?" she asked doubtfully, her blue eyes questioning as she watched his face for some sign of what it was that he really thinking as he told her all of this. "Do you _really_ think he's going to be jealous of us?"

Tristan laughed outright at that. "You mean you _didn't_ see it tonight?" he asked in disbelief, his eyes sparkling merrily as he pulled to a stop as close to her building as he could get, turning the key in the car, the engine noises dying away into silence. Turning to look at her, he raised a brow to his forehead in one smooth movement. "Rory… the guy was livid." He chuckled. "He was _completely_ threatened by me."

Rory finally smiled, her blue eyes sparkling at the familiar cocky arrogance she remembered from high school. "Of course he was. It's hard not to be jealous of you…" and so saying, before she could talk herself out of it, she leaned over to touch a brief kiss to his cheek, before turning and stepping out of the car. As she had her back turned, she completely missed the stunned surprise on Tristan's face at what she did, an expression that was gone the minute she turned back.

"Thanks for tonight, Tristan. I had fun."

Tristan grinned up at her, and for what seemed like the millionth time that night, Rory felt those now familiar butterflies start their dance once more. "Yeah, me too. It feels good to catch up. I'm glad I took the chance to get to know you again."

She just smiled at that, nodding. "I'm glad you did too," she assured him, walking backwards a few steps as she waved at him, before turning and making her way into the large campus building in which she lived.

Tristan just watched her go, an almost perpetual smile twisting his lips. He might have offered to walk her to her door, he noted absently as he turned the car back on and drove away, but knew at the same time just how things like that went down. Being alone with Rory in the car had been bad enough, and it hadn't taken him very long after first stumbling across her that day on campus, to realise that his feelings for the young woman were still very much present. But he couldn't… he _wouldn't_ go there again. Trust was something that just didn't seem to reside anywhere within him anymore; at least not where relationships were concerned. Too much had happened. A serious relationship was just too much for him now, and with Rory… nothing had ever been casual.

_Leave it alone, Tristan_, his mind warned him, and he knew he would listen.


	4. Confessions

"So what's up with you and Tristan?" Logan asked, glancing sideways at her momentarily, his eyes guarded so she wouldn't know where the conversation was going. "You guys seem really close."

Rory just shrugged, glancing briefly back at him, before she turned her head to look back at the roof. "I don't know. Tristan's… I guess we were never really _just_ friends. There was always something else to our relationship. In the beginning, I couldn't stand him, then it was this insane attraction that kind of drew me towards him, despite my relationship with Dean. Then we were together for a year… then afterwards… I guess we didn't speak at all really. An occasional hello, and otherwise back to how it was in the beginning, but no real animosity. I think he might have resented me for breaking it off for a while, but otherwise things were okay." And she turned to look back at him, bright blue eyes catching dark brown before his darted away again. "Why do you ask?"

Logan just shook his head to play down his reasons, but Rory began to suspect right then that Tristan had been right. That Logan really _wasn't_ comfortable with him around that for some reason, Logan might actually be _jealous_ of the other young man. Rory fought to suppress a smile as he spoke. "No reason. I just noticed a bit of a… well… vibe. He seems really interested in you, that's all," he admitted with a shrug, his eyes riveted on the roof as he attempted to play down his interest in the matter. "Just thought maybe there was something a bit more than friends between the two of you."

His phrasing was that of a question, and Rory knew that to instantly deny his guess would effectively lay waste to all her plans from before, so she bounced up off the bed, padding barefoot to the bedroom door. "Let's get some food! I'm _so_ hungry," she announced, dismissing the conversation with casual ease, pretending his statement had been just that; a statement, not a question. Even if she'd wanted to however, she knew that things just weren't that easily explained where she and Tristan were concerned.

What had started as an evening to simply make Logan jealous had turned into something more; any time with Tristan had always turned into something more. Something about him – the way he smiled perhaps, or the way he spoke to her – had pulled her in yet again, and had made it near impossible to get him out of her mind. Not to mention that dark mysterious quality he had about him these days. What was up with that? Despite making conversations incredibly frustrating – for he was careful not to give away information regarding Oxford – it also made the guy that much more interesting.

At the same time, there was within her a certain wariness where that guy was concerned. She knew his track record when it came to relationships – had experienced it firsthand – and she was in no hurry to put herself again through all the hurt and pain she'd been in that last time. Tristan had effectively stolen and then shredded her heart during the course of their year-long relationship. His almost inevitable drifting away – she really _should_ have seen it coming – had hurt her more than she would ever tell anyone. Only her mother knew of her huge bout of misery, and…

Her thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of her cell phone, and glancing briefly at it, she smiled. "Speak of the devil," she murmured quietly, catching Logan's curious look before picking up the phone.

"Hey."

"Hey Bambi," her mother replied, and Rory had to smile. Lorelai had taken to calling her that occasionally since that conversation many years ago in Luke's diner. "How's Yale life?"

Rory just shrugged, despite the fact that her mother couldn't see the brief gesture. "Life is great. Guess who I bumped into the other day?" she asked then, not missing the dark frown on Logan's face at the question, but pretending that she had. When her mother requested the information, she offered it. "Tristan."

"No kidding. I thought he went overseas."

Rory nodded – another superfluous action – and laughed softly. "He did. He studied his first year in Oxford University, and then transferred here at the end of last year," she explained, neglecting to mention her suspicions that some event had caused the move, acting for all the world as though switching between Ivy League schools was an everyday occurrence. "Studying _medicine_."

"_Medicine_?" her mother queried, and Rory knew from the sound of her mother's voice, that she was just as stunned at Tristan's suddenly revealed potential as she had been when he'd first mentioned it. When Rory confirmed her words, Lorelai whistled in appreciation. "Who thought the boy was _that_ good at studying."

"I know what you mean. I couldn't believe it. I mean, I knew he was smart and everything, but not _that_ smart…"

Lorelai chuckled into the phone, before suddenly voicing what must have been a spontaneous thought. "Why don't you invite him around? Have dinner with us on Friday night?"

"At Grandma's?" and when Lorelai confirmed this, Rory shook her head slowly, replying hesitantly. "You really think that's a good idea, considering their opinions of him last time they saw him?"

Lorelai laughed. "Ah yes. They never really warmed to the boy did they?" she asked, and Rory heard the clear amusement still twining throughout her mother's voice. "Well how about our place, Saturday?" she asked. "Luke's coming over – I'll get him to bring coffee – and we'll all hang out."

"Yes… Tristan _was_ really fond of Luke's coffee, wasn't he?" she asked with a warm smile, unaware of the expression on her face, although Logan – making breakfast in the small kitchen – noticed it all too clearly, turning away with a dark frown.

"He really was, which gained him at _least_ several points in his favour, if I recall?"

Rory laughed. "It really did. Okay, then Mum, I'll invite him. See you Friday."

"See you then, Bambi."

Rory laughed, tossing her cell phone to Logan's couch, unable to remove the smile on her face as she almost danced over to his little kitchen. "That was my mum," she informed the boy, and Logan nodded vaguely, his mind obviously elsewhere.

"So you and Tristan are hanging out, are you?" he asked then, and Rory managed to look surprised at the question, when in fact she had seen it coming, given his dark looks during her conversation with her mother about the guy.

"Sure," Rory offered with a shrug, before turning quickly back to him. "That's not a problem right?" she asked, as though perhaps she wasn't sure. "We are casual, right?" she clarified, and when he nodded, she pretended not to see – smugly, she would admit – the frustration in Logan's eyes. "Good. Cause mum really misses the guy. Those two got on ridiculously well when we were dating. So did Tristan and Luke… the guy who runs the diner."

"The one dating your mum?" and when Rory nodded, he continued. "The one who completely blew up when he caught _us_ together?"

Rory's eyes filled with embarrassment, twining her fingers through a lock of her hair. "Yeah. That would be him. He's always been pretty protective of me. I guess most of Stars Hollow are. In a way, they all helped to raise me…" she informed him with another shrug.

"And Luke didn't have a problem with Tristan and you?"

Rory thought about that for a long moment, a grin tugging at the corner of her lips. "Well he wasn't too keen when he found out after Tristan and I had slept together that first time," she explained. "But I think he got used to it after a while, and accepted him all over again. Last time they saw one another, they were pretty tight, teaming up against mum and I."

Logan just nodded slowly, as though thinking this through. "So Tristan was…"

But finally Rory cut him off, shaking her head in dismay, her face apologetic. "Do you mind if we don't talk about this?" she asked, her blue eyes almost pleading with him. "I mean… Your other girlfriends might be okay with this, but to me…" and she shrugged. "I guess I just don't feel comfortable discussing other guy's I'm seeing with you," she explained.

"So you and Tristan don't talk about me?" Rory fought back the smile at his subtle query into whether she was seeing the guy. She pretended not to notice this however, and just thought about his question a moment, as though trying to remember a time when she might have mentioned Logan's name to Tristan. Finally, she shook her head. "Not after the original query as to who you were," she admitted. "Why?"

Logan just shook his head, feeling increasingly more disconcerted by Rory's spending time with this other young man. It seemed almost ridiculous that he should be jealous of the situation, but he admitted freely – to himself if not to anyone else – that this was in fact the case. It didn't help matters now that he'd discovered both her mother _and_ her mother's boyfriend, Luke, two of Rory's more devoted protectors, liked the guy in question. He remembered all too well Luke's reaction to the news that Rory was with him – or at least _seeing_ him. Nor her mother's for that matter, although he had to admit that her reaction had been _far_ more pleasant than Luke's. Still, she had never really approved of him, and he knew this might have had something to do with the fact that he wasn't _officially_ dating her daughter.

Whatever the reason, he didn't like that Lorelai and Luke liked Tristan better; in fact, the very idea of it bothered him considerably, and for the first time in what felt like forever, he actually _thought_ about making a relationship official and exclusive. This was simply because no matter how great other girls were, Rory was… well… Rory. There was only one person in the whole world like her, and despite his not wanting to have _only_ her in his life, he knew that sacrificing some things were better than giving up others. He would sacrifice his current dating social life a hundred times over before sacrificing his relationship with Rory. He didn't want to lose her – couldn't, in fact, even consider the possibility that he might lose her – and yet he knew too that he couldn't start anything official. Not yet.

To do that, he'd have to end all association with those other girls he'd promised to take out, not to _mention_ the fact that if he pushed for a serious relationship now, it would appear as though Tristan was the _only_ reason he'd chosen to do so; that he _had_ in fact been jealous of the guy, and he knew immediately that Rory wouldn't appreciate that at all. His biggest fear, of course, was neither of the two. His biggest fear was something he'd never thought he'd ever have to worry about.

What if she said _no_?

What if he asked her out and she chose Tristan? How was he supposed to deal with that situation? Would he even be able to? He'd never actually _had_ to worry about a situation like this before, because after all, he'd never really asked a girl he actually _liked_ out before. Not for anything _serious_ and exclusive anyway, and the idea that Rory might like another guy more than him was torturous to his mind. Usually he might have been confident, knowing that his father's money and influence, not to mention his immeasurable good looks and charm were enough to win any girl over; especially a girl interested in journalism – like Rory. Unfortunately, Rory was also one of those girls who didn't go for money, influence, good looks, or even handouts, and even if she _was_ Tristan had equal amounts of just about _everything_ that he had, not to mention they had _history_, which he _really_ couldn't compete with.

"So what's the plan for today?" Logan asked casually, subtly fishing for information, wondering if she'd let it slip that she and Tristan might be meeting up. If that were the case, he'd make a point of dropping in on them, making sure that things didn't get _too_ carried away. Logan knew it didn't take very long to convince a girl they were interested in you. He'd had enough practice doing just that, after all, and if Tristan was in any way as experienced at this whole thing as he had implied that he was… Well, Logan knew that he'd best watch out.

Rory just shrugged in answer to his question, glancing momentarily at the watch on her wrist, before shaking her head slowly. "Nothing much interesting, I'm afraid," she offered. "I have classes in an hour, so I really have to be going, and lots of studying to do afterwards. Professor Moriarty threw a 'How much have you all learnt' test in our faces at the end of our last class, and it's coming up this afternoon," she explained as she moved about the small room, gathering her things from the floor and stuffing them into the small bag she'd brought with her.

Throwing her jacket on over the singlet she wore, she offered Logan a brief smile of farewell, touching her lips equally briefly to his, before turning and making her way to the door. "I'll see you later," she offered by way of parting, and he nodded, before calling out as she stepped through the door.

"What are you up to tonight?" he queried, and she turned back with a look of surprise. Planning anything wasn't really his speciality. He liked calling up at the last minute and asking her if she wanted to go someplace.

"Uh… Actually Paris and Doyle are having a movie night in our dorm, and wanted me to stay and play hostess. You're more than welcome to join us, of course. There'll be a whole _bunch_ of people there," she explained, and Logan just shook his head, rejecting the offer.

"No, it's cool. Colin called last night and told me about this awesome club that's worth checking out, but if you're busy…" and he shook his head, shrugging as though to dismiss the whole thing, hoping at the same time that his explanation might have intrigued her enough to consider coming.

"Sorry, Logan. Perhaps some other time," she offered, not taking the bait, not even interested in the _slightest_, it seemed, before turning again. "But if you change your mind, and want to come to the movie night, feel free to just drop by. Starts at seven," and so saying, she disappeared into the busy corridor outside.

* * *

Rory heard the knock at the door, shaking her head in amusement at the niceties that some people insisted on using. In her eyes, being invited to a movie night at her dorm meant that one was allowed to walk in without knocking, and most people she knew, and those who were invited, knew this already. So who…

Her unspoken question was answered as she yanked open the door, ready to berate whoever it was for breaking her rules, and she almost choked on what she'd been about to say. "Hey," she offered, kind of lamely if she really had to think about it, but his appearance at her door, so unexpected, and _far_ from unpleasant, simply disallowed her throat to form around any real words. A sentence was completely out of the question.

"Hey," he offered in return, glancing briefly around the room and taking note of the small group in there. "Sorry… I didn't realise you guys were throwing a party. I can come back…"

"No," she cut him off, opening the door wider and stepping back to allow him entry into her dorm room. "Come in. It's just a few friends watching movies. You're more than welcome to join us."

He stepped through the door of the room, looking increasingly more uncomfortable as he did so, and when she closed the door behind him, he glanced at it briefly as though reconsidering his decision to enter; as though perhaps he wanted to escape.

"Did you want something to drink?"

Tristan just shook his head quickly, his blue eyes turning from the others in the room and snapping back to hers as though perhaps that contact might save him from some unknown evil in the room. "Actually I was wondering if perhaps I could speak to you for a moment?" He hesitated momentarily, glancing around at the many people in the room before inclining his head towards the door, as though implying they should go out there. "Alone?"

Frowning with some sort of concern in her eyes, Rory nodded, before leading the way back through the door and out into the hallway. When she turned back to him, she offered herself a brief moment to study his clothing choices for tonight; dark blue jeans, and a rich dark navy t-shirt, over which he'd thrown a black, long-sleeved shirt he'd left open. His hair was its usual casual mess, and Rory had to admit that he was looking _more_ than attractive, swallowing heavily with the increase in her nervousness.

"So…" she began, as though attempting to prompt him, and Tristan nodded quickly, taking a breath and clearing his throat before attempting his explanation as to why it was that he'd come there tonight.

"You know there's history here, Rory," he began, and she nodded slowly, as though accepting his assessment of the situation, unwilling to say anything unless she made a complete fool of herself. "And you know too that we've _tried_ a relationship, and it didn't work…"

Rory couldn't help the small smile of amusement that tugged at her lips as he spoke. It was so unusual for her to see Tristan uncomfortable, and she had to admit that she was enjoying it a little. When they'd first met, she _knew_ that she had been the one who was constantly unsure and nervous… She frowned suddenly. So what had happened to Tristan overseas? What had changed him so much?

When he remained silent for a long moment, Rory just watched the young man bemusedly, finally growing tired of the long silence. "Tristan, where is this going?"

Tristan almost jumped at her words, and she knew instantly that he'd been lost in thoughts. Thoughts of what, she couldn't even _begin_ to guess at, and so she dismissed it moments later from her mind when his blue eyes, dark with the emotions that ran riot within him. "I think I still like you; I think those feelings are still there…"

Rory looked startled a moment, before quickly looking away, shaking her head almost automatically, words almost immediately jumping to her lips. "Tristan… I…"

But he cut her off, shaking his head. "No. I'm not asking for anything; I don't even _want_ anything," he explained, and Rory looked up at him with a curiosity that she couldn't manage to hide from her eyes. "I just wanted you to know that any awkwardness between us earlier, and any more that might occur… It's my fault, and has nothing to do with you." A slight smirk tugged at his lips then, a shadow of the old Tristan returning for just a moment. "At least not directly."

Rory just nodded silently, unsure really what she could say to such a thing. After all, the guy had just admitted that he still liked her – and yes, the butterflies in her stomach were now dancing in such a way that she was beginning to feel a little ill – but at the same time, he'd said that he wasn't asking her for anything; didn't even _want_ it. Some kind of disappointment erupted into her stomach seconds later at the thought, and the butterflies ceased their wild dances.

"I know I might have made things even _more_ awkward now," he acknowledged, and Rory nodded her agreement with a long sigh. "I just… I felt that you had the right to know. And I know nothing can happen, because you're doing the whole casual thing, and with the two of us…" and he shrugged with another small smile. "Things never seemed to be casual on _any_ level."

Rory shook her head, returning his smile and doing her best not to appear completely uncomfortable. "No. They really weren't," she offered, momentarily considering telling him that she still had some of those all too familiar feelings for him too, before dismissing the thought immediately from her mind. He'd always been able to read that in her before, so why should things have changed now?

"So…" he began, and his tone was more than a little uncomfortable as he looked down at her from his taller height. "What now?"

Rory let out a huge breath into a long sigh, before offering him a brief shrug, her eyes studying carefully his handsome face. "You could tell me what happened in Oxford," she suggested, immediately seeing his eyes closing off; pulling away both physically and emotionally.

In an act of almost desperation, she reached out and clasped his forearm tightly, refusing to allow him to move any further away, her bright blue eyes finding the darker shade of his. "Tristan… What happened to you?" and when he shook his head for a second time, she stepped closer, looking up into his downturned face. "You _know_ you can tell me."

There was a long moment as he hesitated, his eyes transmitting quite clearly to her just how unsure he was about this entire thing, before finally, he nodded. "But not here," he told her, looking around as though a whole group of people might be hiding in the dark shadows around them.

"Sure… Just let me grab my purse…"

And so saying she ducked back into their dorms, bid Paris a brief farewell, telling her that she'd be back soon, before returning to the tall young man who waited, still hesitant and unsure, his eyes dark with some kind of sadness and what could almost have been anger, outside her dorm room.

"Okay," Rory began, shrugging into her denim jacket and offering a reassuring smile up at the young man, taking his arm in hers. "Lead the way."

Five minutes later, a young man in a black jacket and red shirt appeared at the door, opening it without a word and walking into the room to a chorus of hellos. It was only Paris' greeting however, that caught his attention.

"Logan! Uh… Hi. Rory's not here."


	5. Secrets and Discoveries

"So…"

They were seated alone in the shared area of Tristan's dorm room – his roommate was apparently something of a player – and had been sitting in silence for what felt like just about forever. When Tristan's eyes moved to hers at the broken silence, she offered him a bit of a faint smile, which he returned almost immediately.

She had to admit that his confession earlier that evening had certainly changed the dynamic between them. He'd taken all the mystery out of the whole thing, and all that Rory could attribute to this loss was a certain dimming of her own interest. Perhaps that sounded almost stupid, but it was true. Tristan's appeal in the past had always been that she'd never been quite sure what it was that he was thinking, or how he truly felt about her. Now… Well… the mystery was gone, and with it went some of her interest in him.

Still, that certainly had nothing to do with this conversation they were involved in right now. The only effect it seemed to have on them was that suddenly things seemed a lot more… was _comfortable_ the right word? Well, whatever the case, it certainly made Rory feel a lot more at ease; that was for sure. His confession that he didn't want anything to happen between them had come quickly on the heels of his announcement, and Rory had to admit that it took some of the pressure off their interaction, even as it created no small amount of disappointment that she tried to summarily dismiss – unsuccessfully, to be sure – from her mind.

"So…" he mimicked her, offering a brief smile before his face fell once again into that melancholy that she now found so familiar in him. "Where to begin…" He said the words thoughtfully, as though thinking this through carefully, not really sure where the whole story actually began.

"With Oxford?"

He looked over at her with a smile, nodding slowly before his gaze returned the floor. He seemed to have a hard time maintaining any eye contact while they sat there, and she wasn't sure if it was because of her – the young woman he still had feelings for – sitting there listening to him so intently, or perhaps it was the fact that he was about to share something he'd kept so secure and secret since she'd bumped into him again.

"I guess so," he answered her, interrupting her thoughts and drawing her attention once again back to his handsome face. "Oxford…" and he said the word thoughtfully, his eyes distant, obviously reminiscing about the place. Then he shrugged lightly. "We were a pretty good fit, Oxford and I," he explained, his eyes never moving from the floor. "The courses were excellent, the teachers were geniuses," then he allowed a reminiscent smile to touch his lips. "The girls were gorgeous…"

Rory had to smile back at him, despite the sudden burst of jealousy that shot through her. Irrational though it was – after all, she'd seen him out with _many_ girls whilst they'd still been in school – she couldn't help but wish he might refrain from mentioning any of his encounters in _too_ much detail. But the memory of the old Tristan couldn't help but bring a smile to her face. She really _had_ enjoyed spending her time with him, back in the day.

"What happened?"

The question was quiet, and Tristan's smile disappeared instantly when he heard it. He shook his head moments later, as though refusing to talk about it. Rory was about to say something when he finally broke the silence.

"It wasn't Oxford."

"Nothing happened in Oxford? But you... you left."

He nodded, his eyes never moving from the floor. "Yeah... Yeah I did."

"Why?"

"Bad timing?"

"You left an Ivy League school because of bad _timing_?" Rory asked in disbelief, and Tristan chuckled suddenly in amusement.

"We still have it."

"Still have what?"

"This whole talking, bantering thing."

Rory paused, a small smile twisting her own lips as she realised that he was right. She had always enjoyed their conversations, even before she could admit to herself that she really did. From the first, their conversations had always been entertaining, even if they had been exasperating and increasingly frustrating.

"We kinda do."

He nodded, risking a glance at her face, only to notice that her expression was serious once again. "So?"

"It wasn't to do with 0xford."

"But you quit."

"I did, yes."

"Why?" she asked, and when he opened his mouth to speak, she hurriedly added. "And don't say bad timing, because we've definitely established that."

"Well it was."

"Was what?"

"Bad timing."

She frowned darkly at him, and he held up his hands in defence, his eyes sparkling at her, obviously amused at just how easy it was to continue to frustrate her. "Sorry... Okay. My parents."

"You left Oxford because of your parents."

Tristan took a deep breath, and Rory, who was enjoying momentarily the return of that fun, playful version of Tristan that she remembered so well, was startled and more than concerned when a painful flash of something crossed those dark blue eyes before he looked back at the floor.

"Yeah."

"What'd they do this time?" she demanded angrily, remembering too many a time when his life and its course had been dictated by his parents; when he'd had no choice but to do as he was told. Yet this didn't seem to be one of those cases, as it turned out, because he was smiling, this time with absolutely no humour whatsoever, and shaking his head as he looked back into her face.

"Rory... They died."

* * *

"What do you mean Rory's not here?" Logan demanded to know, a frown tugging at one corner of his mouth, his handsome face looking both perplexed and more than a little upset. "Where is she?"

Paris just shrugged briefly, her eyes scanning the room as though perhaps Rory might jump out from behind a chair and greet the guy who wasn't _quite_ her boyfriend. "She said she'd be back later."

"When later?" Logan demanded to know, and the dark tone of his voice made Paris' eyes narrow slightly.

"She said soon, but I don't see how this should be any problem."

"Hey," he cut off anything she might have been about to think or say to him. "Rory invited me tonight. The least she could do was show up."

"Yeah?" Paris demanded, rising from her comfortable seat on the couch to stand before the young man who had become her antagonist. "Well Rory invited a lot of people, and they're all here too, happy enough without her for the moment."

"She invited Tristan, didn't she?"

Paris just shrugged, her obvious lack of interest showing quite clearly on her face. "I wouldn't know. She doesn't tell me everything."

"She left with him?"

Paris just watched him steadily, her brown eyes thoughtful as she attempted to decide on his reasons for needed to know this information so badly. Seconds later, she smiled triumphantly. "You're jealous."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me, Huntzberger. You're actually jealous of those two."

"So she _is_ with Tristan." He said it as a statement, as though there was no question there at all.

"Look, buddy, I haven't seen Tristan all night, and as far as I know, he _wasn't _invited. We only invited a few people..."

Logan looked around the room with raised brows, eyeing the many people there that he didn't recognise. "Yeah, sure. I can clearly see that."

"Most just showed up when they heard we were having a party. The brought music, movies, junk and alcohol. Why the hell would we want to turn them away? Open door policy, remember?"

"That doesn't answer my question. Did Rory leave for Tristan?"

Paris just drew herself tall and smiled sweetly at him. "I wouldn't know. She didn't tell me," she replied, one brow arching at the young man. "Although I'm not really seeing how this is a problem."

"She invited me. She should be here to at _least_ say hi."

"Well last thing I remember hearing was that you and Colin were planning to go hit up some club. You weren't coming, is what I heard."

"Well I changed my mind," he shot back, dark eyes narrowing in annoyance. "If you know where she is..."

"Sure. I'd tell you," she replied sarcastically with a brief shrug, and when, with a shake of his head, Logan turned to go, she continued. "You guys aren't dating, you know?"

Logan turned back with a frown, his eyes dark and bordering on angry. "Excuse me?"

"You don't own her. You have no say about whomever she's with or what she's doing with them," she replied, and when Logan opened his mouth to say something more, she shook her head. "No. You listen to me, Huntzberger. If she's decided to go hook up with Tristan, or with some other guy, then good for her, because she doesn't need this kind of crap, pining after a guy who couldn't give a damn about her. You're _always_ out with other girls, and she's _constantly_ seeing you with them, and you don't even think for a _minute_ that any of that is a problem!"

Logan was frowning now, a dark warning flashing in his eyes. "I don't see how..."

"Of course you don't!" Paris continued her rant, waving her hands through the air for emphasis. "You don't _know_ her! You _can't _know her well enough! Because those who know her _know_ that this isn't what she wants. She says it is, she _says_ that she wants nothing serious, but that's because she _really_ likes you, and doesn't want to give you up, even if she has to _torture_ herself constantly when she remembers that you're with other girls as well."

"Hey!" Logan interrupted, pointing an almost dangerous finger at the young woman before him. "She chose this. She suggested it."

Paris just sighed, shaking her head. "You know what. Don't worry about it. You don't get it. You don't know her, it's fine, but you also have absolutely no right to get upset when she's with other guys. You're doing it to her, and now she's finally doing it right back to you. If you have a problem with it, end it or make it permanent, but don't come crying to people who just don't give a crap about what you have to say." And so saying, she moved to rejoin her boyfriend on the couch, turning her attention back to the movie playing on the big screen – they'd put the subtitles to know what was being said – trying, it seemed, to pretend he wasn't there.

When he moved to walk by her again, she called out to get his attention. "And if you really wanted to find her, I'd find out the places Tristan chooses to frequent," she offered in a calm, cool and collected voice, and when he turned he saw no hint of triumph in her eyes at all. Just a careless indifference. "Because those two have some serious history, and some serious stuff to catch up on."

* * *

Rory just stared at him in disbelief, her blue eyes wide, mouth opening and closing as though fighting for something, _anything_ to say to him. His words seemed almost surreal, and didn't seem to fit easily into her logical and usually calm and composed mind.

"But... I would have heard."

Tristan just shrugged, eyeing her briefly before his eyes fell to the floor again, unable it seemed, to meet her gaze for much longer than a few seconds. "Honestly... I thought you must have known."

Rory just nodded dumfounded, feeling not for the first time in the past few minutes just how unfair life could be sometimes. "God... I'm so sorry."

Tristan just shrugged at her words, laughing bitterly to himself. "Yeah. Good news to hear a few days after you told them to bugger off and never speak to you again, right?"

"You didn't." But Rory knew instantly that he wasn't lying, the disbelief in her voice stemming mostly from concern for him and a strong desire to keep him talking.

"I did. Told them I'd not mind if I never saw them again."

"And you didn't..." Rory's voice was filled with sympathy as he just nodded his acknowledgement of her words. On a whim, she reached out and laid a comforting hand gently on his back, rubbing softly back and forth whilst attempting not to notice the strong muscles in his back when he moved even slightly.

"No. I didn't," he replied, sighing and rubbing his eyes in a weary gesture. "So I came back here to deal with everything. The funeral, the memorial service, the business... their will..."

"Did they..."

Tristan just shrugged. "I got everything. Apparently they actually had some sort of concern for the son they liked to pretend didn't exist."

"They were mad at you; that didn't mean that they didn't love you every minute of every day."

Tristan snorted softly in amusement. "Exactly who's parents are we talking about here?" he asked, and she sighed softly, her hand on his back moving to his shoulder and gripping it gently. Moving her face closer to his in order to catch a better look at his face, Rory smiled at him.

"They loved you, Tristan. With all of their hearts. I don't doubt that for a second."

Tristan looked over at her, his face so close to hers she could have kissed him had she wanted to... Or more correctly, had he wanted _her_ to, because she remembered all to clearly his words earlier that evening. He didn't want anything to happen between them. Nothing...

Her thoughts were gone when his lips met hers in an almost ferocious kiss, her mind struggling to realise just what the hell had happened. One second she was comforting him, attempting to make him feel better about the loss of his parents, and the next...

_But this is comfort too_, her mind whispered gently as her body struggled to catch up with the certain turn of events; struggling to comprehend just what it was that had happened to create such an occurrence. _He's looking for comfort from you_...

It seemed, too, that the young man was sensing her lack of response, and was slowing down, his kisses becoming far less aggressive, and seconds later she knew he would pull away. To let him would be better, she knew, because things between them were so messed up at the moment that this couldn't possibly happen. And Tristan _had_ said that he didn't want anything to happen; that things would only get serious and complicated...

Knowing she would more than likely curse herself for this later, that somehow this was all going to come back and bite her in the ass, she finally gave in to those emotions that were roiling around inside of her, suddenly responding to his kiss with a fierce one of her own. Her lips were almost desperate on his, and she heard a soft noise of surprise issue from Tristan's throat before her mind was swept back in time to those first few perfect months that they'd been dating; to the intense passion that burned between them even from the beginning. Things – some things at least – didn't seem to change, she realised as his lips fiercely explored her own, his long, slender fingers tangling in her short dark hair, and just how great kissing Tristan DuGrey felt was certainly one of them.

She moaned softly as his tongue slid easily between her open lips, sweeping hers up into a passionate exploratory dance, his hands sweeping carefully over her body as though attempting to remember every single inch of the girl he'd once known.

Standing, lips locked, almost as one, the thought obviously mutual, the two stumbled towards his bedroom door, Rory letting out a soft gasp of pain as her back struck the closed door. Amazing and at the same time inordinately unbearable, was Tristan's tall, firm body pushing hers into the hard wood until she could feel every inch of him against her. Pinned to the door, her breath expelled sharply from her lungs when his lips became distracted from her own, burning a fiery trail across her cheek to her ear, his teeth grazing it – she gasped aloud – before wandering across her jaw and throat.

"Oh, _god_!" she moaned aloud into the otherwise quiet room, gasping for breath as his hands found the bare skin of her back beneath the loose red shirt that she wore. "Tristan!" Her voice sounded like nothing more than a desperate hiss, soft moans building in her throat as her hand scrabbled to find...

She twisted the handle seconds later, the couple falling through into the room, Rory's hands tugging off his shirt and discarding it carelessly before leaving his muscular body to allow him to remove her own. The brief moment of his lips away from hers seemed almost torturous, and Rory sought once again for that familiar touch, denied seconds later when she felt them jerk suddenly to a stop, the backs of her legs hitting something solid.

Seconds later, Tristan was lowering her to the soft mattress, and the last coherent thought that crossed Rory's mind as she felt his strong body cover hers, was that, even if she was making a _huge_ mistake, this, just as it always had, felt _incredible_.


	6. Jealous Anger

Rory stretched, unaware for the moment of her surroundings as her foggy mind struggled to grasp just what had happened to make her so incredibly exhausted. Blue eyes opened, and for a moment she stared blearily around at a room that was not her own. Granted, this was not uncommon, because sometimes she and Logan…

But no. For some reason the thought of Logan was just not working for her mind, and seemed wrong on some level, yet it _had_ to be Logan she'd been out with and crashed with, because she didn't do this with anyone else. She had no one else in her life; no one who she'd ever…

Her mind automatically jumped back to that moment the previous night, and she remembered with a great clarity that it certainly _hadn't_ been Logan who had taken her to bed that night, and when her eyes slowly adjusted to the light slanting through the blinds covering the window, it became entirely obvious that this was _not_ Logan's room.

It was Tristan's.

It was only when that thought entered her mind that other factors began inserting themselves also. Like the warm body against whom her own was curled; the king-size bed, for another – a luxury that most dorms did _not_ have; Logan's, after all, was only a queen.

She dismissed all thoughts from her mind, knowing immediately that she was trying to mentally remove herself from this situation and pretend for the moment as though it wasn't real; as though she weren't curled up against Tristan's tall and _incredibly_ athletic figure. Instead, fighting the urge to dismiss it all, she allowed her mind to comprehend everything; how his tanned skin felt under the hand that rested lightly on his chest, the soft rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, and the way his eyelids fluttered as he dreamed. Something about the soft smile on his face told her that his dreams were pleasant, and waking him was perhaps one of the cruellest things she could have done, so she remained as still as she could possibly manage to allow him to finish his rest.

Rory had to admit, thinking on it, that this was nice, waking up in this place with Tristan. After all, it wasn't as though they hadn't been together before – once they'd overcome the 'first time' hurdle, sex had become relatively frequent in their early relationship – and it wasn't as though she knew nothing about him. This was Tristan; she'd known him for years – she couldn't seem to remember a time in her life when she _didn't_ know him, or at least couldn't _comprehend_ just how far away that had been. This was nice, and she didn't want to move.

It seemed that this thought was the catalyst to bring about Tristan's consciousness however, and she felt him stir beside her, his arm tightening slightly around her shoulders where it had rested most of the night, cradling her against him. She felt muscles tensing in his side and arm as he stretched as much as humanly possible without affecting her sleep too much, and she had to smile and his consideration.

"I'm awake," she offered helpfully – her voice still somewhat groggy – and she heard an almost rueful chuckle fill the otherwise quiet room. "Just in case you want to stretch properly."

She regretted her comment seconds later when, with another laugh, Tristan's arm left her shoulders as he raised them above his head, his entire body stretching to wake muscles gone to sleep. She felt comforted moments later as his muscles retracted and his arm fell back around her shoulders, his thumb gently brushing her bare arm as she curled up once again to his side.

"So... uh..."

"Unexpected?"

"Yeah."

Rory laughed softly at him, shaking her head. "You're telling me." And she turned her head propping her chin on his shoulder to get a good look at his face as they lied there. "This _certainly_ wasn't what I had in mind when you invited me back here."

"God! You're right. I'm sorry…" he began, but Rory cut him off with a brief shake of her head and a light slap on his chest to regain his attention.

"No, no. It's fine," she reassured him, nodding moments later, receiving for her words a slow smile as his dark blue eyes met hers. "It was… nice."

"Nice?" he asked, one brow lifting to his forehead, a frown tugging at his lips as he pondered her word use. "Just nice?"

"Incredible?"

"Just…"

"Amazing, exquisite, astounding, wonderful, marvellous… perfect?" she supplied, cutting him off.

Tristan had to shake his head, his hand sliding up her arm to her shoulder, his fingers quickly finding a lock of her dark hair and tugging at it playfully. "Better, I suppose."

"You certainly haven't _lost_ your touch, that's for sure. The King of Chilton is still in there somewhere, I see."

Tristan had to smile at that, shaking his head slowly in thought as he remembered those years at high school in which he and Rory had, first, been dating, and then later had returned to indifferent acquaintances. What she had never known however, was just how wrong that word – indifferent – had been. He'd been very aware of her presence over the last couple years at that school, and very dialled in as to what exactly was happening with her. The day he'd discovered that she was dating again had been a bad one for him, and none had been able to attribute his suddenly dark mood to anything at all.

Which was how he'd liked it.

Then of course, had come their graduation day, when he'd seen Rory – the valedictorian of their school – give a moving speech to the audience, making her mum and the whole entourage accompanying her burst into tears. It had been that day, sitting there quietly and listening to her speak, that he began to realise just what an idiot he'd been those last couple of years at school, choosing a reputation over the young woman who had in fact come to mean more to him than the opinions of any of those at that ridiculous school. By then, he'd known that it was too late. Rory wasn't stupid, and she wasn't about to give him a second chance in all of this. Still, he'd tried and failed – just as he had expected he would – wishing that somewhere in the future he might find a second chance.

He knew too, that this was not it.

Whatever this was, it was clear to him that he was not the only guy in Rory's life now; that in fact she cared deeply about this other young man who – though he seemed unable to admit it to himself or others – cared for her more than she thought he did. What had happened the previous night had been a mixture of comfort, coupled with the resurgence of emotions dormant since high school, and wasn't based on the feelings of today. She didn't know who he was anymore, and he was stupid to have let this whole thing be taken as far as it had. He had to put a stop to it.

Now.

"Rory…"

"I know," she cut him off, her big blue eyes fastened steadily on his, and he saw no regret in that beautiful pixie's face; no regret in those ever-expressive eyes he knew could hide nothing from him. "You're not emotionally ready for anything. You told me the other day, and I get that. What happened, happened, and I'm not going to say I regret it, because I really don't. Just know that I don't expect anything from you," she explained, pulling away from him and rising to a kneeling position, rocking back to sit on her feet beside him.

"I should probably get changed," she offered then, looking down and tugging a little at the white wife-beater he'd given her to wear the previous night, and indicating the loose track pants she'd pulled tight with the drawstring around her petite waist. "After all, you might need these later…" and the mischievous flash in her eyes made a smile tug at his lips once again, despite how guiltily awful he was feeling right now.

Shaking his head at her question, he chuckled softly. "Take them. I'll get them off you later," he informed her, dark blue eyes holding hers a moment, before dropping once again to the sheets of the bed, memories of last night still fresh in his mind. He guessed her having his clothes would assure him of contact with her again, because he knew Rory, and knew that she couldn't keep, for any prolonged length of time, something that wasn't hers.

"Okay," she accepted his offer with a smile, her blue eyes meeting his again for a moment, before she shook whatever thoughts had arisen in her mind away, her blue eyes darting away to the door. "You know," she began, her eyes flicking momentarily back to his, before she moved around his room and collected the clothes they'd strewn about the floor. "I should probably be going," she told him, and he nodded, feeling too that almost suffocating awkwardness that seemed to be filling his room in only those few brief seconds. He knew it had everything to do with the fact that this wasn't serious, and that there was some serious history between the two of them.

Climbing out of bed, dressed in nothing but a pair track pants himself, Tristan moved to the door, opening it with a flourish and a bit of a bow, acting like the proper gentleman he'd been brought up to be.

"Well it's about time," Rory sighed with a short shake of her head. "All these years, I've been wondering when you were going to fall into your birthright… The overwhelming and insufferable manners of the rich." And she grinned cheekily at him. "I suppose you were just a few years later than I'd imagined."

Tristan just shrugged, trying to ignore the fact that the comment drew his parents painfully back into mind, and knowing that Rory would blame herself for reminding him of such a painful memory should she realise where his mind was going. "I suppose so."

She walked out the door of his room, back into the main living area of his dorm – his roommate seemed to still be absent – and made her way to the front door. Turning as she opened it, she looked back at him for a moment, big blue eyes sincere as she leaned up and touched a brief kiss to his cheek.

"I hope you're feeling better soon, Tristan. I do. Honestly, I sort of miss the guy you used to be."

"Sort of?"

She took a deep breath, forcing an expression of weary resignation to appear on her face, at which point he chuckled at her. "Well you WERE kind of annoying…"

"Yeah, yeah… Off you go, Mary. I'll try my hardest to miss you."

She grinned at him one last time, before turning and ducking out into the hallway, disappearing moments later around a corner. Tristan just watched her go, feeling both light-hearted for the first time in forever, and at the exact same time… like a complete idiot.

* * *

It wasn't a long time later that found Rory walking quietly through her dorm building, her blue eyes taking in the faint stirrings that represented Yale life this early on a Friday morning. Generally Fridays would have found her rushing around to her first classes of the morning, but she'd been informed earlier on Thursday that her Friday morning class had been cancelled. Study had been the suggested form of filling in her time, but sleeping in with Tristan had seemed much more important at the time.

It was only seconds after arriving at the door to her shared dorm room with Paris that she realised the lack of thought she'd actually put into that, and regretted her decision immensely. Still, with nothing to fault her with, considering the fact that he did the same thing, she walked calmly up to Logan – seated on the stairs opposite her dorm room door – as though nothing was at all the matter.

"Logan... hey. I wasn't expecting you."

"_That_," he spoke almost dangerously, his eyes flicking over her figure, still dressed in Tristan's clothes – or at least, obviously a guy's clothes – before they flicked back up to meet hers. "Is obvious."

When she said nothing to his statement, merely looking steadily back at him as though waiting for him to make his point, he inclined his head to indicate her dorm room, continuing without another second's pause. "Where were you last night?" The question was up front and Rory wasn't deaf enough to miss the anger that coloured heavily his voice.

"What do you mean?"

"Last night. The party. You invited me. The least you could have done was to let me know that you weren't going to be there."

Rory just shrugged at that, her blue eyes watching him carefully as though to make any sudden movements might cause him to do something rash. "Well you said you weren't coming."

"I wasn't _going_ to come," Logan admitted with a short nod, looking briefly at the ground before his eyes lifted once again to meet hers. "But I guess this thing with Colin fell through – his parents are back in town and wanted to see him – so I thought I'd drop by and say hi."

"You should have called first."

"Clearly."

There was a long silence between the two of them as both attempted to stare the other down. Never a huge fan of confrontation, his dark eyes boring into her own began to make hers water, and she looked away with a brief sniff. "What do you expect? An apology?" she asked, brows rising to her forehead in question as her blue eyes turned back to meet his. "Because you're dreaming if you are."

"I thought you said Paris wanted you at the party," he asked darkly, and it was clear to Rory that he was trying to catch her out with something that she'd told him earlier; to prove that she'd been lying, she didn't know, but it was something similar.

"She did, and I was," Rory explained with a brief shrug. "But a friend had an emergency, and I had to take off. Paris gets it, or will get it when I explain."

"An emergency?" Logan sneered at her, his dark eyes flicking once again down her figure to take note of the clothes that she was wearing. "Yeah. I can _see_ that."

Rory's eyes narrowed at his assumption that he had ANY right to be saying any of this to her. Tristan's words from the night of the party resounded strongly in Logan's behaviour now, and yet for the first time since Tristan return, she wasn't immeasurably happy to know that she _did_ in fact _mean_ something to this guy standing before her. His jealousy now was just irritating.

"Look… What the hell are you doing here?" she asked snappily, her eyes narrowed him, bright blue flashing darker in the beginnings of her anger.

"You know… I don't really know anymore…" he explained with a brief shrug, his eyes dark; his jealous anger more than clear to her in those expressive brown eyes she adored so much. "See you around."


	7. Strike While The Iron’s Hot

**Author's Note:** Hey guys! Thanks everyone for your reviews and encouragement! Glad you're all enjoying my creation! I know it's a little different from the original, but for those who read that, thanks and I hope you stick around to the end of this one!

So here is the next chapter. Hope you all enjoy. Read and review! Let me know what you all think!

* * *

It wasn't too much longer that found Rory seated in her room, dressed and ready for her next class, staring off into space while the minutes slowly ticked by as she attempted to reconcile herself to her life at that present moment. How had things gotten this hard, she wondered to herself, blue eyes moving to the door as it opened, admitting Paris' boyfriend Doyle into the room.

"Hey," she greeted him with a brief nod, before she turned her eyes once again to the floor.

"Hey. What's up?"

"I think I've screwed up my love life."

"Oh... Good," he murmured, eyes concerned, but she could tell he really didn't want to get into the depressing details of just how bad she was feeling right now. So instead she smiled, dismissing the whole thing.

"How're you?"

Doyle just shrugged as he moved deeper into the room, ducking momentarily into Paris' room to collect some books he'd forgotten that morning, and ducking back out moments later. "Things are good," he admitted. "I finally convinced Paris the other day that we don't need that bloody counsellor telling us what we should and shouldn't do in our relationship, and things are moving forward."

Rory tried her very best to offer him a cheerful smile, nodding her congratulations. "Well that's great, Doyle. Glad she finally trusts you to make your own decisions."

Doyle offered her a brief smile, before inclining his head towards the door. "Hey… You'd best get going if you don't want to be late for class. We're pushing it as it is…"

Rory nodded with a sigh, rising to her feet and slinging her bag over her shoulder. Preceding Doyle from the room, she bid him goodbye at the entrance to her dorm room, both heading in opposite directions across the campus, and for that Rory found she was glad. She liked having the time to herself to think things through. Like for instance how her love life had managed to become so screwed up.

Logan was smart, witty, fun – not to mention _hot_ – and this was the only reason she could find when she asked herself why it was that she had begun this whole casual dating thing to begin with. She should have known that none of it would be that easy, and despite her _telling_ him that she was fine with casual, she really, really, _really_ hated sharing him with those many other girls he was always with.

It seemed, too, that he felt the same way about her.

Which wasn't to say that he wanted something serious; he just didn't like it when she played the '_we're only casual_' card right back at him. Thinking about it now, she realised that it was _insanely_ hypocritical of him to think so, seeing how he tended to date just about every girl his age on campus, while she'd only been with one other guy once.

And Tristan… She knew that he hadn't told her everything about what had happened to him whilst at Oxford University. He hadn't really gotten further than telling her about his parents' death, but she could tell there was still something he was hiding. There was something more to it, because a death of a family member – at least for Tristan – would warrant only a visit back to sort everything out. Tristan had left England _permanently_, and she wanted to know why. Obviously not ready to talk about it with anyone however, Rory knew that she couldn't force it out of him – she'd come to _know_ just how stubborn the guy was over their year long relationship in school – and would just have to wait until he was ready to confess it to her.

And now she had all Saturday to get it out of him.

That was another thing. How on earth was she supposed to spend an entire Saturday with him? After all, the times they'd spent together since he'd reappeared in her life had been few and far between, and during _none_ of those times had she felt _entirely_ at ease around him. It was hard to be so, after all, given their past history. Now hanging over their heads was what had happened the night before. It had been just before they'd fallen asleep that Rory had invited him for dinner on Saturday night, and talking briefly about it whilst they'd both been feeling so deliciously languid had procured his company for the entire day before they met her mother and Luke for dinner. Great. Just what she needed.

Still, the situation was what it was, and there wasn't really much that she could do about it, short of being rude and making things awkward between the two of them. And cancelling a day with him was just ludicrous anyway. Despite how awkward things might become, she really – for some reason – needed him to tell her what had happened to him in Oxford. Every second of every day it was on her mind as she attempted to puzzle her way through it, and a whole day would give her an ample amount of time to draw it out of him.

Unless he didn't _want_ to tell her.

But what could it be if he didn't want to tell her about it? Things with them had ended almost permanently after their brief dating stint, and even _talking_ had been rare. At their graduation, her instant dismissal of anything he might have said to her at that point had only widened the chasm that stood between them, and so how could he even presume that anything he might tell her about Oxford would hurt her. Unless he wasn't worried about her, but about himself.

She had seen at the time that he still had feelings for her – he'd even admitted to her earlier the previous day that they still existed – so perhaps it was for the safety of his own feelings that he hid those secrets from her. Whatever the case, she intended to get the truth out of him if it took her the rest of their time here at Yale, and Saturday was the perfect opportunity to lay the groundwork. Now that Logan seemed out of the picture – and she couldn't _help_ but feel a little upset at that thought – this Saturday thing wouldn't be _too_ much of a drama, although she could only _imagine_ what her Stars Hollow friends would think when they saw her walking around with her ex.

She shook those thoughts from her mind as she approached her class, seeing the last streams of people entering the lecture hall and ducking in behind them, pulling the door closed behind her as she took her seat.

* * *

"Hey! Rory!" a familiar voice called out to her, and Rory turned with a smile and a brief shake of her head when she saw the Australian approach. Finn, in all his usual glory, was spending his time with two extraordinarily gorgeous girls who she had never actually seen before today. Where he met these random women she had no idea, although she would allow that the school was certainly large enough for her _not_ to have seen everyone yet.

"Finn," she greeted him with a nod as he caught up to her, walking with him as they made their way back through the university. "How've you been?"

"Well, that all really depends," he offered in his usual Australian drawl, his eyes moving between his two companions. "On just how likely it is I'll get a number from these two…" and Rory had to shake her head in amusement when the two girls giggled at his antics.

"I see."

"So you and Logan are toast?"

The question came out of nowhere, and Rory almost stopped dead in shock, staring at the Australian in surprise as she stumbled briefly. Regaining her balance and the use of her voice, Rory smiled almost regretfully at him, nodding her head. "Yeah. I think we are, judging from his reaction this morning."

"So it was this morning?" Finn asked, pausing for a moment as though processing this thought. "You know… Logan's not usually the jealous type."

Rory just shrugged, brows raised to her forehead in amusement. "And what's _that_ got to do with anything?" she asked, bright blue eyes pinning those of Logan's friend.

"It means that, and to use a well-known catchphrase, 'if you strike while the iron's hot'…" and he shrugged, eyes glittering in the power of his evil plan. "You've got the Huntzberger right where you want him. All you have to do is go for it." Then he shrugged. "Try this weekend. Go see him. See what happens."

"I can't this weekend. I'm heading back to Stars Hollow. I'm taking Tristan to see my mum and her boyfriend."

Finn's brows rose to his hairline at that, his surprise clearly evident on his face. "Meeting the parents, huh? Taking things fast, Miss Gilmore?" he asked cheekily, although she could see something of concern in his eyes. She knew of course that this was not concern for herself, but for his friend. Although why it mattered, she didn't know. Logan didn't want anything more to do with her, whatever Finn had said.

"Not like that," she explained with a slow shake of her head. "Tristan and I dated for almost a year, and he, my mum and Luke all became pretty good friends. I guess we're all hanging out for old times' sake; Tristan and Luke against mum and me."

"You guys had teams, huh? Sounds like you were pretty close."

Rory just shrugged. "Yeah we were… back then. Things have changed though. I've changed, Tristan's changed… Even mum and Luke have changed, because they certainly weren't dating before…" She offered Finn a brief smile and another shrug. "I guess you could say we all changed and drifted apart. Things have happened, and we can't go back to where we were." Suddenly she seemed to realise that she was relating all this information to someone who could most _definitely_ pass it straight on to his friend, and she had absolutely no doubt in her mind that he would. For some reason, Finn had seemed really keen on keeping the two together since they'd met, and this information seemed to annihilate Tristan's chances with her. Figuring she couldn't make things perfect simple for Logan if he _did_ feel like taking a _real_ chance for once in his life, she continued. "Although who knows… If this weekend goes well, we might just take a chance and see where it goes."

Finn just nodded slowly, eyes watching her steadily as though assessing whether or not her threat was credible or not. Seconds later, he shrugged, appearing to dismiss the whole thing from his mind. "Well good luck with your weekend, Rory, but remember… If it falls through… Remember that the Huntzberger is wounded and vulnerable right now. Shouldn't be too hard to snag and bag the guy."

And so saying, Finn steered his dates off, both girls looking back over their shoulders at her as they walked away, obviously curious to study more the girl who had apparently won more than just the amorous attention of the Huntzberger heir, and at the same time didn't seem to care that she had. No doubt they were wondering what this Tristan guy had that made him anywhere _near_ as desirable as Logan.

Good thing she wasn't shallow too.

Still, despite her apparent indifference to Finn's words, Rory couldn't help but be struck by the content. So Logan had been really jealous, had he? Despite the righteous indignation flaring up within her at the thought of him judging _her_ for what she'd done, Rory couldn't help but be entirely flattered that above all those other girls that he spent his time with, Logan seemed highly interested in her and her alone. Not that Finn had said that of course, but his words had certainly implied it. That Logan Huntzberger, Yale's biggest and most successful playboy, had somehow managed to find himself ensnared by her; that he couldn't seem to stand anyone but himself with her.

Tristan had been right. Her plan _was_ working. Yet Tristan himself was the only thing that was standing in her way to taking Finn's advice and hunting the other guy down. No matter what he'd said, about being unable to deal with a steady relationship right now, she was fascinated by the idea of being with him again. He'd changed so much since last they'd seen one another, and she couldn't help but notice just how much more mature he was now, from what she could tell avoiding all relationships with girls, whether steady or otherwise… So maybe things would be different if they tried this again.

Then again, maybe not, and she couldn't forget just how hurt she'd been the last time they'd had to end things; or more correctly the last time _she'd_ had to end things. She wasn't sure she could willingly put herself through that again, even though she had come really close to doing so after they'd spent the previous night together – despite her outward reflection of understanding and acceptance. His flat out refusal to even _consider_ anything had felt like some kind of blow to the stomach, and she realised that she'd been right the night before when she'd briefly thought that she'd probably regret what she'd done. She regretted it all right.

Yet at the same time, she couldn't seem to imagine doing anything differently. She knew there were still feelings for him down inside her, and knew that they were fighting to come out. Yet at the same time, what with his current mood and view on relationships, she knew she had to suppress those same feelings to prevent herself from being hurt all over again – and perhaps hurt irreparably.

Perhaps Finn's plan _wasn't_ such a bad idea…

* * *

"Logan?"

Logan was surprised, and turned slowly, almost loathe to risk that the voice did _not_ belong to the young woman he'd thought it did. For the brief... well it wasn't even a _day_ since he'd left her standing at her dorm, the realisation that he appeared to have ended all association with her hanging over him; slowly destroying what remained of his sanity.

"Rory."

His voice was quiet, but at the same time almost aloof, as though greeting an acquaintance instead of the close friend – and yes; more – that she really was. The hope – for he recognised it for what it was – in her eyes disappeared at the sound of his voice, and her bright blue eyes fell from his to look at her shoes.

"I'm really sorry."

"Huh?"

Whatever it was that he'd been expecting, it _certainly_ wasn't an apology. Rory was exactly a girl who went around apologising to everyone for everything that she did. She was considerate to a lot of people, sure, but if she hadn't done anything wrong, she didn't apologise. That was just how she was. So what...

"I didn't know you'd be so upset about it..."

"Upset about what?"

He wasn't confused anymore, that's for sure. He knew immediately what it was that she was talking about, but he didn't want her to know that. He didn't _get_ jealous of the girls he was with when they spent their time with other guys. He wasn't a one woman guy; didn't think that he ever _would_ be, but with Rory...

Being with Rory was something different altogether. She was so completely _different_ from every single girl he had ever been with, being that she was beautiful, smart, sweet, sexy, and so completely intelligent that it was almost intimidating. Generally smart, intelligent girls didn't let him take them out. They knew better than to get involved with someone like him, but Rory, for some reason, had decided to give it a go anyway, knowing what he was like. In the beginning, she'd mentioned something about a failed relationship, and now that he thought about it, he didn't actually know much at all about her previous dating history.

From what he'd gleaned in recent days, she'd been with someone called Dean, broken up with him for Tristan – _god_, he hated that guy – broken up with Tristan a year later, and then... nothing. He didn't know anything after that, and perhaps there hadn't _been_ anyone. Thinking it over for just a moment however, and he realised just how stupid a thought that was. Someone like Rory – gorgeous, sweet, and just about as innocent looking as someone who wasn't could get – was a catch, and no guy would pass up an opportunity like that if he came across it. HE certainly hadn't, and he couldn't have been the first... He wondered for a moment what the story was there, before he realised with a start that she was just watching him in an almost miserable silence; waiting for him to say something.

"Right. The Tristan thing. None of my business."

Rory looked away with a sigh, shaking her head. "That thing with Tristan... It was nothing. Just a one-time thing... Seriously, Logan. There's nothing going on with us."

"It's _really_ none of my business, Rory. I agreed on the casual thing... I've been doing it... I can't be angry at you for doing the same thing."

Rory just watched him silently for a long moment, seeing the disinterest, a pout tugging at her lips and darkening her big blue eyes until Logan felt like a complete jerk. Then in a show of childish temper, she stamped her foot, her eyes suddenly blazing as she clenched her fists, her whole posture almost startling in its intensity. He couldn't ignore either, the fact that she was seriously hot as all _hell_ when she was angry.

"But you _are_! And it's not _fair_!"

Then without another word, she whirled on the spot and fled, the speed with which she'd done so not fast enough to hide from Logan the tears that sprung from her eyes, trailing in silent rivulets down her smooth cheeks.


	8. Think Before You Speak

**Author's Note:** Hey guys!

Thanks for all your reviews and encouragement! It's great to hear from you all, and I'm glad you're all enjoying this so far. Feedback is awesome and totally encouraged in this case. I don't write without feedback, so if you like what you're reading, let me know.

Anyway... Next chapter. Hope you enjoy this, and that it's not too dull and lifeless for you all!

Thanks again guys! Enjoy, read, and review. I look foward to hearing from you all!

* * *

"God… This place hasn't changed at all, has it?"

Rory had to laugh at Tristan's comment as the two drove down the quiet streets of Star's Hollow early Saturday morning. Few people were up at this time of day, or at least few of those that she usually socialised with. It had been when she'd broken up with Dean that first time that she and her mother had first discovered the 'early morning' crowd at Luke's. There had been very few people that they actually recognised, and she still remembered her mother's shock at the fact that they were all up so early.

"No. It rarely does, but I think I like it that way," Rory explained, glancing over momentarily at the blonde boy seated in the convertible beside her; before her eyes slid on to observe the familiar town. "I'd miss it if it changed."

Tristan just nodded silently, his eyes roaming the streets as well, his eyes quickly landing on Luke's; a smile immediately lifting his lips at the sight. "Okay… So just how hungry are you right now?"

Rory didn't even have to think about it, and didn't have to say a word it seemed, because when he saw the grin twisting her lips, Tristan just laughed and nodded, pulling to a stop opposite Luke's, and turning off the car. "Well… Your town. Lead the way, Mary."

He'd taken to occcasionally using that nickname again, although it hardly had the same meaning that it had used to. It certainly no longer made her angry that he wouldn't use her real name. After all, it was more a sign of affection now, than an intense desire to annoy her.

Offering him another smile, she opened her door, stepping out into the street and noticing instantly the many eyes that turned their way. After all, a sleek, black convertible in Star's Hollow was rare enough – although back in the day, Tristan had visited enough in the silver one he'd driven through high school. Ignoring the stares and whispers that those few people on the street shared with those they walked with, Rory led the way into the diner, blue eyes adjusting to the slight change in light, before she made her way over to a couple of empty seats at the counter.

"Hey Luke."

"Rory!" he greeted her with surprise, turning from whatever brief conversation he'd been having with the person beside her and smiling down at her. He had the usual look, of course; flannelette shirt, jeans and a backwards blue cap, but as per normal, he was always happy to see her. "Bit early for you, isn't it?"

Rory just shrugged, inclining her head at the boy in the process of taking the seat beside her. "Not my…" and her voice was lost as she yawned at that timely moment, Luke chuckling down at her as she finished. "Idea. Luke… You remember Tristan?"

"How could I forget," Luke asked the pair, before offering the young man a hand which Tristan shook without a second thought. "Tristan, how are you?"

"Hey Luke," Tristan offered by way of return, blue eyes meeting those of the diner owner's. "Things are… fine. Surviving school… Though it's the best I can do for now." Luke just nodded slowly, obviously unsure just what those words might actually mean – he obviously hadn't heard the news – and was rescued from finding something to say when Tristan continued. "So I heard you and Lorelai…" and he allowed his voice to trail off as a wide smile spread across Luke's face, and the man nodded his enthusiasm for the situation.

"Yeah… Couldn't be happier," the older man explained, and Tristan grinned over at him in amusement.

"It's about time the two of you ended up together, if you ask me."

Luke looked confused at the comment, frowning for a moment at the blonde sitting so casually in front of him. "What…"

"I _mean_," Tristan rode over him, answering the unspoken question. "That there was so much bloody chemistry between the two of you back in the day, I thought it'd only be a matter of time." Then he shrugged. "I was right, _naturally_," and Rory shook her head in dismay at his cheeky arrogance and the mischievous wink he offered her. "But even _I_ couldn't have guessed just how _long_ it would have taken you."

"She was engaged…" Luke was beginning to explain when Tristan rode over his, shaking his head in instant denial.

"She broke up with Mr Medina _just_ after Rory and I got together."

Luke just shrugged. "Well she was still a bit of a mess after that…"

"Come on," Tristan baited him. "All you'd needed was to tell her how you felt, and that would have been it. Instant relationship. Yet it takes you almost four whole _years_…"

Luke's eyes narrowed when Tristan's face split into a huge grin, shaking his head in dismay at the boy's annoying point of view and perseverance in any argument he involved himself in. "Coffee?"

Tristan just shrugged at the sudden topic change, accepting it wordlessly and chuckling when Luke's eyes narrowed again; quickly nodding his acceptance of Luke's offer of the steaming beverage. When Rory mimicked his nod, Luke turned to get a couple of mugs and the coffee pot. When he turned back, he was fixing Rory with a frown and an expression that was a testament of just how irritated he was. "I can see why the two of you broke up," he muttered under his breath. "The guy's impossible."

Rory just grinned. "Well he wouldn't be Tristan if he wasn't, now would he, Luke?" Then she shrugged. "And besides… at least with him you'll have backup at dinner. Jess wouldn't have even bothered to try it." She laughed. "He probably would've sided with mum and I, just to get at you."

"Jess?" Tristan queried, and Rory looked at him in surprise, before nodding quickly.

"Yeah. Sorry. I forget you don't know about all that stuff… Jess is Luke's nephew; he was staying here for a while – Luke was trying to straighten him out or something." And she shrugged it off, as though to dismiss the whole thing.

Luke however, didn't seem to want to let her.

"Rory did a better job of straightening him out than I ever did."

Tristan's turned to Rory, those dark blue eyes fixing on hers and studying her carefully. "Rory straightened him out, did she?" he asked, one brow rising to his forehead. "This wouldn't be the guy I remember hearing about back at Chilton, would it? The new boyfriend?"

Rory shrugged again, trying to dismiss the whole thing, not really feeling up to getting into her dating history with one of her ex-boyfriends. "We dated for a while. Not so long, in the end. He moved to California, and we only really see him occasionally now."

Catching something in her tone and the words she used, Tristan asked his next question carefully. "And you're... okay... with that?" When Rory looked over at him in surprise, he just shrugged. "It seems as though you might not be completely over the guy..."

Luke looked surprised by the direct comment, and he frowned momentarily at the blonde young man sitting there, before Rory laughed with a brief shrug. "I don't know. Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. I haven't seen Jess for ages. Sometimes I wonder about him, but that's about it for now."

Tristan just shot her a lopsided grin, something she hadn't been expecting when discussing an ex-boyfriend; at least not from him, and she just glared at him playfully for a moment. "Hey Luke... Sorry to be a pain, but could I get those coffees to go?" she asked, shaking his head in amusement, Luke took the coffee mugs from the two, ignoring Tristan's short cry of dismay.

Rory just shook her head at Tristan's questioning expression as she took the paper cups from Luke, and headed out the door. "Okay, where are we..."

And he stopped dead in confusion when she began walking away; ignoring the car parked at the side of the road and heading off down the opposite side of the street.

"Rory!" he called, jogging to catch up, falling easily into step beside her and rescuing his coffee from her hands, fixing her with a steady frown, blue eyes narrowed. "Where are we going?"

"That," Rory began, a bright smile dusting her lips and bringing a brief smile to Tristan's face when he saw it; an expression he removed just as quickly lest it make their day awkward. "Is a secret. You'll find out soon enough..."

* * *

"You want to get an apartment together?" Tristan asked sceptically, looking up at the block of apartments with a frown of complete confusion. "Now... I know you enjoyed yourself night before last, but I didn't think I was _that_ good..."

She slapped him sharply on the arm – something he wasn't fast enough to dodge – frowning darkly as he shot her that amazing cheeky grin that made it almost impossible to stay angry with him.

"No," she shot at him darkly, hitting him again when he continued to grin at her, before she turned back to the apartments. "I just wanted you to meet..." But her voice had trailed off, because she'd spotted the subjects of her search, and tugging at Tristan's jacket, she headed to intercept them. "Dean! Lindsay! Hi."

Dean turned in surprise at the sudden greeting, a smile coming instantly to his lips as he and his wife approached. "Rory! Hi." It took him a moment longer however, to recognise the young man standing beside his ex-girlfriend and long-time friend. "And Tristan DuGrey if I don't miss my guess."

"You don't," Tristan offered shortly, blue eyes studying the face of the taller guy before him. He had never really understood how one could get married as young as Dean had. If his guess was correct, and Rory's information had been accurate, the two had married at about eighteen or nineteen years old… which to him seemed more than a little foolish. Surely something like that couldn't last.

"What brings you back here?"

Tristan had to smirk at what sounded almost like a defensive question, his blue eyes flashing with amusement as he held the slowly darkening gaze of the young man before him. "Rory, of course," Tristan answered him with the briefest of shrugs, sliding his arm around Rory's shoulders as though it belonged there and watching with a keen interest as Dean's gaze narrowed slightly at Tristan's almost possessive tone.

"You two are back together?"

Tristan was about to respond to that question – with what, he wasn't so sure – when Rory answered for him with a short laugh of amusement. "No. That was forever ago, Dean. Tristan just got back from a year at Oxford, and now he's at Yale with me. We're just hanging out… catching up. You know how it is."

Dean just nodded slowly, his eyes still studying the blonde warily, and Rory chose to believe that this had everything to do with the fact that the two had been such huge rivals last time they'd seen one another – they'd _never_ really gotten along after all – but in which Tristan saw something more. He didn't like him, he didn't trust him, and he was actually… jealous? What the hell? He was married to Lindsay! What the _hell_ did he have to be jealous about…?

Deciding that whatever else happened, his wife _and_ Rory had best not see the jealousy on the guy's face, Tristan turned his attention to the young woman, extending his hand to take hers and offering her one of his most charming smiles – something that darkened the expression on Dean's face considerably. "And this lovely young woman is…"

"Oh… sorry," Rory snapped her mind back to the present, having been lost in memories of the past for just a moment, and resting her hand lightly on Tristan's forearm – Tristan saw the jealousy darken Dean's eyes again – she continued. "Tristan, this is Lindsay Forester; Dean's wife. Lindsay; meet Tristan DuGrey."

Lindsay shook his hand slowly, her wary eyes studying him carefully for a moment, before she withdrew her hand and slipped it back around Dean's waist. "I remember seeing you around. It's nice to finally meet you, Tristan."

"Likewise," Tristan offered back with another of his charming smiles, and Rory was about to suggest that she and Tristan had to be going – they didn't really, but something felt awkward here, and she wasn't entirely keen on continuing to ignore the feeling – when Dean spoke up, his tone almost aggressive.

"So Tristan. What is it that you're studying?"

Rory had to frown at the tone, bright blue eyes moving first from Dean's dark, almost angry gaze, back to Tristan's intense blue eyes, flashing brilliantly in challenge; daring Dean to do something; what, she didn't know.

"Medicine, actually," Tristan answered in a calm, and yet incredibly direct way. "Doing well too, in case you wanted to know."

"I didn't," Dean answered him stiffly, dark eyes darkening even further at the aggressive stance Tristan seemed to have taken. Tristan knew all too well that the arm he still had around Rory's shoulders wasn't helping matters either. He wasn't sure yet whether or not he wanted to make a scene right here, with Dean glaring at him in such a way, wondering for the moment if he really deserved to be married to a girl who loved him if this was the way he was treating her. Being married to one girl and even after all this time, still in love with the other...

He could have taken the high road.

He chose not to.

"Doesn't surprise me. You only liked hearing the things you could use against me."

Rory inhaled sharply at the comment, because despite the calm and indifferent way he said it, the meaning behind it made Dean's gaze darken considerably until even Lindsay noticed the dangerous vibe between the two young men.

"Dean…" his wife's voice held something of concern, and something of warning within it, Tristan amused at just how effectively she managed to use her tone. Still, effective or not, it made absolutely no change in the dark and angry flash in Dean's eyes; nor it seemed, did his reply become toned down even slightly.

"That's because you were an asshole back then, you're an asshole now, and I've no doubt you'll be an asshole for years to come."

Rory inhaled sharply at the insult, a fiercely dark frown dawning on her face as she glared at Dean, who managed seconds later to see that he'd managed to upset both women. Too late to do much about it other than apologise, Dean said nothing – the _last_ thing he was going to do was apologise to Tristan.

"Look who's talking."

Dean's eyes flashed once again with anger, before confusion began to eat slowly at the emotion, and a brief frown tugged at his lips. When Tristan saw this, his eyes narrowed almost menacingly.

"After all, I'm not the one who's in love with one woman, and married to another."

Dean just stared at him in shocked silence for a long moment, both Rory and Lindsay frowning in both confusion and wariness at one another. Tristan was the only one who noticed Dean's jaw suddenly lock with anger, and therefore was the only one expecting the young man to lash out.

Ducking the blow easily, Tristan shoved the taller boy away, one brow rising on his forehead in dark amusement. "You're only proving my point, _Dean_," and he spoke the name as one might the name of something slimy on the bottom of one's shoe. "Next time you want to hide something, don't get so incredibly defensive."

Rory might have apologised and dragged Tristan away at that point had Dean not responded to Tristan's comment almost immediately. "I'm in love with Lindsay, and _only_ Lindsay."

"_Really_?" and the scepticism in Tristan's voice made Dean's eyes narrow further, his fists clenching at his sides – it was clear just what he wanted to do to the cocky young man standing before him.

"Yeah," Dean answered shortly, his words chopped and strained, as though he wanted to start a fight right there. "Really."

"I don't believe you," Tristan answered calmly with a shake of his head, before his gaze was diverted by the slight tug on his arm and the soft warning in Rory's voice as she spoke.

"Tristan…"

He clearly saw the warning and the fury building behind those blue eyes, and knew that it was all directed at him; that she wasn't blaming Dean in the slightest for _any_ of it. He had to admit that yes… it _was_ he who was pushing this conversation and pressing the issue, but the hypocrisy of the whole situation, and just what Dean was doing – leading Lindsay on like that – wasn't allowing him to let this go. Dean was still in love with Rory. He always _had_ been, and Tristan wanted to hear him say it.

"Well you don't have to, but it's the truth," Dean stated as calmly as he could manage, his voice tight and controlled, his hands still clenched into fists, quivering slightly as though he wanted to punch the guy out right there.

"Really." Tristan spoke quietly, as though surprised by Dean's admission. "Now that's interesting," he continued quietly, as though thinking aloud to himself. "I could have sworn…" Then his blue eyes lifted again to meet Dean's again. "Fine. Here's how it is. Look me in the eye and tell me, straight out, that you're not, in _any_ way, in love with Rory Gilmore." He saw something flash momentarily across Dean's eyes before it was swallowed again by the blazing fury that increased almost exponentially as time wore on.

"Fine." Dean shot back, leaning forwards slightly and using his greater height to appear more intimidating to the shorter of the two. Tristan however, didn't even flinch, standing strong and calm in the face of the taller boy's rage. "I am _not_, in _any_ way, in love with Rory Gilmore."

He might have gotten away with it, Tristan thought to himself, if, at the precise moment that he said her name, Dean hadn't swallowed heavily, his eyes darting momentarily to her face before moving swiftly back to Tristan's. The widening smile on the blonde's face must've been the final straw, it seemed, because before Tristan could react, Dean had thrown a fierce punch, catching him in the jaw and causing him to stumble back a few steps – almost losing his balance and falling to the ground. One thing was for sure, asshole or not, the guy knew how to punch.

Tristan would have retaliated too – any excuse to beat the crap out of this guy – if Rory hadn't, as he'd been stumbling back, caught his arm and continued to drag him away. "Bye Dean, Lindsay," she offered quickly and quietly, her voice sympathetic and more than apologetic. "I'm _so_ sorry."

* * *

It was almost ten whole minutes before Rory spoke again. Every time he'd thought she'd been about to speak, she'd merely closed her mouth again, shook her head and continued walking. The almost oppressive silence made it feel as though they'd perhaps done several hundred laps of the small town before she finally found the words she'd wanted, and Tristan couldn't help but breathe a small sigh of relief when he discovered that she was, indeed, still talking to him. For how long though, he really didn't know.

"What is your _problem_?"

A question he should have been expecting, he knew, and yet at the same time one that he wasn't ready to answer. Why was it that he'd taken that shot at Dean? After all, despite the fact that hurting Dean had been perhaps the last concern on his mind, Lindsay _certainly_ didn't deserve everything that he'd just put her through. As far as he could tell, she was a lovely person, and didn't deserve finding out something like that about her husband… at least not in such a way.

"Dean's an ass."

"Well ass or not, that wasn't what came across after that whole spectacle you made of yourself back there. In my opinion, and no doubt Dean's and Lindsay's too, _you're_ the ass here."

"She deserved to know."

"Dean's not in _love_ with me! That was years and _years_ ago… Why can't you let it go?" she demanded to know, and Tristan shook his head with a rueful smile, his eyes nowhere close to apologetic – something that only made Rory angrier. "Why the hell is Dean even a _problem_ for you now?"

Tristan sniffed his disbelief at her comment. "What? If you were married to a guy, wouldn't _you_ want to know if he was still in love with his ex?"

Rory just fixed him with a fierce glare, her frown not lightening even for a minute. "But it's none of your _business_, Tristan. Why can't you understand that?"

"Lindsay had a right to know that she's married to an asshole."

"But you didn't have to throw it in her face."

There was a long pause as Tristan just studied her face, blue eyes calculating and almost confused, before seconds later it seemed as though he'd figured it all out. His voice was quiet as he spoke, staring at her in shock and some kind of dawning realisation. "Oh my god. You knew."

"What?"

"You _knew_ that Dean was still in love with you. You knew it and you didn't say anything. You weren't _going_ to say anything."

"Tristan…"

"Why not? Why were you happy to let Lindsay continue to live a life that is a complete lie? What could you possibly have gained by not telling her?" He shrugged briefly, his expression thoughtful. "There's absolutely _nothing_ that you could _possibly_ gain from such a situation. Other than an affair, of course..."

Tristan wished he hadn't said it the minute it left his mouth, but before he could say another word, of apology or otherwise, Rory had slapped him fiercely across the face, his head ringing from the blow.

"Go to hell," she hissed angrily, whirling on the spot and storming off.

She didn't look back.


	9. It’s Not Just Him

**Author's Note:** Hey guys! Sorry about the wait. I've been caught up in the insane and everpresent problems of life, and so it took me a while longer to complete this chapter.

Thanks again to all who offered opinions and encouragement. Your words are always highly appreciated, and I hope that you continue to enjoy this story.

* * *

Lorelai shot a glance at Luke over the table, the question in her eyes something she knew that he couldn't answer, but wanting only to share her concern with someone she knew who cared almost as much about Rory's sullen and near-silent behaviour.

Rory had come home early from her afternoon with Tristan – with Tristan nowhere in sight – with an expression that was all to familiar to Lorelai. After all, hadn't this been how she'd reacted when she and Tristan had first met? He had always been one of the only guys she knew – and later the only one of Rory's boyfriends – who had been able to rile the girl up at all effectively. When she'd been with Dean and even Jess, when they'd said or done something wrong, she became upset. With Tristan, anger had usually been her first emotion.

Now it seemed that history was repeating itself, because once again Rory was home after spending time – however much it usually didn't matter – with Tristan, her face a mask of fury, and with very little to say to anyone. After a while, of course, this silent thundercloud slowly dissolved into the sullen and upset Rory, and Lorelai knew almost immediately that whatever it was that Tristan had said or done, it had really struck a note. She was bothered by something, and Lorelai realised quite quickly that she really wanted to know what it was.

"So… Are we still expecting Tristan?" she asked hesitantly, and Rory's bright blue eyes – darker than usual with her anger – lifted to find those of her mother. "Or should we just start?"

The food was arranged haphazardly on the table, and despite the incredible smells wafting from the unopened bags – Luke had brought them over from the diner – she didn't want to begin if Tristan was going to show up after they'd started.

Rory's eyes just fell back down to the table, another of those silent shrugs lifting her slender shoulders as her mind moved back onto the occurrences of that day. Lorelai sighed heavily, and was _just_ about to announce that they'd start without him when the doorbell rang.

Her eyes moved slowly, unlike her daughter, who's eyes snapped suddenly to the hall leading to the front door, eyes narrowing swiftly until Lorelai might have been afraid that lasers were going to come shooting out of her eyes – much like Cyclops from that X-men movie…

"I can't _believe_ him…" both Lorelai and Luke heard slip from her lips, before she rose swiftly from the table – before either of them could do the same – and made her way to the door. Wisely deciding to stay where they were the two listened in on the conversation.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Rory demanded to know, her eyes blazing at the guy she had once thought had changed so much over the few years she hadn't seen him. Obviously the death of his parents had only increased that insufferable arrogance, and his presumption that he could say whatever the hell he wanted and get away with it.

"I believe I was invited," he answered calmly with a brief shrug, as though making an observation that really should have been obvious and was boring to have to repeat. Naturally, Rory's eyes narrowed at the behaviour, fiercely glaring at him as though attempting to cause him to suddenly burst into flames.

"Well I am uninviting you. Leave."

Tristan just shook his head again in that stupid _'I'm in the right'_ sort of way, and Rory felt her hands clenching into fists by her side. She had never been a particularly violent person, but sometimes Tristan brought the worst out in her, and at that moment she felt like doing nothing more than hitting that arrogance off his face.

"Technically you weren't the one to invite me, so you're going to have to ask your mother."

Her eyes blazed angrily at him, and Rory fought the urge to start screaming. "You're _not_ coming in. You can go to hell."

"You've said that before."

She let out an angry breath. "Well I really think you should. I have nothing more to say to you."

"And yet you're the one doing most of the talking here," he pointed out with a raised brow, dark blue eyes flashing with some sort of amusement that made Rory's desire to strike him even higher than before.

"That's only because I want you to leave."

"It was only an observation, Mary," he offered as a shrug. "I didn't mean that you were having…"

But Rory, unsure as to what her mother might have thought of Tristan's suggestion that day, cut the guy off before he could go much further. "Observation or not, you meant what you said."

He shrugged. "Maybe, but it's true. That's really the only thing you can gain from _not_ telling…"

"Shut _up_! Just shut up!"

And now it seemed that Tristan had realised that she didn't seem to want her mother to know what they'd been discussing earlier in the day – didn't want her to know the particulars of why she was so upset with him.

He dropped his voice, leaning towards her, one brow lifting to his forehead in amusement. "You let me in," he began in a whisper, so that those in the kitchen wouldn't hear. "Or I'm sharing my suspicions with your mother. Let's see what she'd think of it all…"

Rory just stared at him in disbelief for a second, not daring to believe – or not _wanting_ to believe – that he would actually stoop as low as blackmailing her so he could join a dinner with a girl who didn't like him, her mother, and her mother's boyfriend. It seemed ludicrous if she really thought about it, and she just shook her head for a minute, trying to clear it and figure this whole thing out.

"Fine. Come in," she almost snarled at him, her eyes blue pools of anger and loathing as they looked up at him. Then she opened the door wider and took a step back; these actions the only invitation into the house apart from her words. She didn't want him here, not at all; and she was taking no pains to hide that from him. "But the less you say the better."

Tristan just shrugged his disinterest in the words she spoke, before making his way unerringly towards the kitchen – his memory of the house obviously still fresh in his mind. The minute he saw Lorelai, the smirk that had been on his face widened into a grin, and he extended his hand for Lorelai's.

"Hi Tristan," she offered, accepting the hand – a little uncomfortable at what seemed almost like formality – and shaking it briefly, before beckoning for the young man to join them at the table. "I see you've not lost your talent to rubbing my daughter the wrong way."

Tristan just chuckled as he took the seat offered, reaching out to pat the hand that Rory had placed on the table's top. His smile widened a little when she pulled it sharply away, shooting a dark glare at him and turning away, as though refusing to even look at him.

"I think you might be right, Lorelai," he agreed with a nod, before he leaned forward and breathed in deeply, his smile brightening into a grin as he looked over at Luke. "This smells incredible," he offered, and Luke shrugged, his modesty not allowing him to take full credit for Tristan's appreciation. "If there's one thing that I missed about America, it _has_ to be this food..."

"Not us?" and Lorelai's pout made Tristan laugh, the sense of familiarity in this situation allowing him to relax more than he could remember relaxing since that fateful night he'd met his parents in the middle of London. After their awful admission that had changed his entire life. He could even still remember the expression on his mother's face as – being drawn into an argument between the two – he'd made perhaps the worst discovery of his entire life.

"Not _quite_ as much as the food," he admitted with a shrug, attempting to assume an expression that might cause her to believe his words. "But sure. I missed you at least a little," and he held his index finger and thumb about a centimetre apart to indicate just _how_ little, grinning at the offended expression that graced Lorelai's face. Then he shrugged. "But I think by the time I'd left the country, I was already used to not having your around, truth be told."

"What? And you'd eaten at Luke's since you and Rory broke up..." but her voice was trailing off at the amusement that crossed Tristan's face and the almost guilty expression on Luke's. "You mean you actually drove all the way out here to eat at Luke's?" and when Tristan nodded, she added another question. "More than once?"

At Tristan's shrug, Lorelai just stared at him in disbelief for a moment, even Rory's attention moved to the boy seated beside her, confusion evident in both pairs of eyes. Luke just shrugged, obviously about to explain, before Tristan spoke up – wanting to take the heat if Rory and Lorelai decided to get upset about this.

"Ah... Yeah. A couple of times after Rory and I broke it off," he explained with a shrug. "I guess I was in a bit of a..." but a second later he seemed to realise what it was that he was saying, and just shrugged it all off moments later. "But that was a while ago now. Before I started college."

"Huh," Lorelai answered; her brows on her forehead still in surprise as she surveyed the boy across from her. "Unexpected." Then she looked from her boyfriend and the almost guilty expression on the man's face, then back to Tristan's. "So _why_ exactly did you decide to come down? After all, I know Luke's food is great and all, but it can't be great enough to warrant a drive like that…" Then she offered Luke an pologetic expression. "No offence, by the way, Honey."

Luke just shrugged his reply, a brief smile dusting across his face before he turned back to glance at Tristan. "None taken."

Tristan's brief glance at Rory as Lorelai asked that question gave the answer away as surely as if he'd yelled it into the small room, and Rory sat back in surprise. "Well… I don't think I was _quite_ willing to give it all up," he answered with a shrug, realising that everyone would know what he was talking about and not bothering to specify. "But every time I did come down here, I ended up at Luke's." He smiled ruefully. "After a few visits, I began to realise it just wasn't going to happen, and I stopped coming."

"Ah well… For the best, I suppose," Lorelai explained with a faint smile. "After all, it was shortly after that when Jess showed up, and Rory and Jess…" and she shrugged. "Well I'm pretty sure if the two of you had still been together, Jess would have done a seriously amazing job at breaking you up." And she grinned at the boy sitting across from her. "You could take lessons from him."

Tristan looked up in surprise. "Yeah? Wow. Sounds like an awesome guy; I wish I'd got to meet him."

Lorelai nodded slowly, her eyes almost resigned as she shrugged. "He was an okay kid, as kids go, but some of the things he'd say and do…" and she shook her head in dismay, rolling her bright blue eyes in a way that brought a grin to Tristan's face, and a smile of remembrance to Rory's. "Well I admit that at times I wished I had you back with Rory instead."

"No!" and Tristan's soft exclamation of faux-horrified surprise was met with a similar expression on Lorelai's face.

"No. I'm really not kidding."

"Wow… Now I _really_ wish I got to meet him. Anyone who could piss Lorelai Gilmore off to such a degree is _certainly_ worth getting to know," Tristan offered, chuckling softly at Lorelai's dark frown.

Despite her anger, and despite vowing to herself that Tristan wasn't going to be forgiven for a long time to come, Rory found herself relaxing around the light, bantering atmosphere; her mother's obvious interest in what Tristan had to say causing her own interest to be piqued once again by the handsome young man. Whatever flaws he had, Tristan DuGrey certainly made a meal more interesting, and they had finished eating before Rory even realised that they'd begun.

Despite the relaxed atmosphere, and the fact that she too seemed to have relaxed a little in Tristan's company, she still remained silent for most of the night, offering her opinion only when it was specifically requested, and otherwise allowing whatever anger she had left within her to stoke itself up before it came time to leave. The last thing she wanted was for the whole situation to be forgotten by the time she got into that amazing car.

* * *

"So," Rory began as they walked down the path, Lorelai having closed the door behind them after a brief wave goodbye. "Where'd you disappear to?"

She'd tried to make the question as casual and completely neutral as she possibly could, but still there remained a hint of the biting anger she'd been feeling all evening. It seemed too that Tristan picked up on this, and decided against making some witty comment or teasing remark. Instead, he just shrugged.

"I went home."

"As in, to Hartford?" and instantly her ire was completely forgotten when Tristan nodded slowly, almost thoughtfully, his mind obviously still overwhelmed by being in that place now his parents were gone. "How'd that go?"

He glanced over, making sure she wasn't talking just for the sake of it, because the last thing he wanted to do was have a serious conversation with someone who just didn't give a damn _what_ he said. He found concern instead of disinterest in her eyes however, and just shrugged again.

"As good as can be expected."

She just nodded, unsure really what to say in response to that comment. The long silence drifted on, broken only the soft chirrup of him unlocking the car, and the two of them climbing in. The roar of the motor interrupted the silence seconds later, yet despite the constant noise, Rory still felt as though it was deafeningly quiet.

"You know I didn't mean it like it came out, right?"

Rory just took a deep breath, letting it all out on a sigh before taking another one and risking her words. "Can we not talk about this, Tristan?"

He paused a long moment, his eyes seeking hers as they stubbornly evaded looking back. Seconds later, he turned back to the road with a brief shrug. "Consider it forgotten."

"That's not true, and we both know it."

Now he sighed heavily, shaking his head in dismay but not looking at her again. "Are you ever going to let this go?"

Rory paused again, thinking her words through and wondering how he might respond to them. Was it worth getting into a fight about this all over again? After all, it was clear that Tristan had something more buried deep down beneath that calm, cocky exterior that he hadn't told her about, and yet – thinking about it – did that really matter? Was that really her problem? Was it really her duty to sort out what it was and to pull him through this? Technically it was none of her business and so technically she should just leave it all alone. Her decision made, she chose her words carefully and spoke.

"You implied that I was having an affair with a married man. How can I just forget that?"

Tristan just shook his head stubbornly, dark blue eyes flicking briefly to look at her before turning back to the road as he drove. "That wasn't what I meant to imply."

Rory just nodded slowly, accepting this wordlessly for a moment, if only so they didn't start fighting again, before she fully realised what it was that he'd said, her eyes narrowing almost instantly in suspicion. "And what was it that you _meant_ to imply?"

He turned his gaze to look at her for a longer moment this time, and for a moment she was sorely tempted to beg him to pay attention to where he was driving. Then his gaze turned back and he shook his head sadly. "I guess more than anything I was implying that you might have _wanted_ to."

For a moment her emotions were torn. One half of her wanted to admire him for his brave honesty, considering the fact that he probably had a pretty good idea how she'd react to a comment like that. The other half of her felt outrage and fury that he could even suggest such a thing about her. The second half – naturally – won, proving Tristan's fears correct.

"What?" she answered snappily. "You think I was cultivating a relationship with Dean so that he'd cheat on his wife with me? You _really_ think I'd do something like that?"

Tristan hesitated, and she noticed that his eyes didn't move to look at her at all this time around, remaining fixed out the windscreen, although she did notice his eyes flicker momentarily to the rear-view mirror. "You've changed since I knew you last, Rory," he answered, and for a moment she thought that he'd let the whole thing blow over, say something about how he didn't know what she was like now and he couldn't judge.

She was wrong.

"I really think it's possible."

The blind rage and fury that swelled up within Rory at that moment almost completely overwhelmed her, and were he not driving the car, she might actually have struck him. As it was, all she did was turn to face him, blazing blue eyes fixed fiercely on his, her small hands clenched into fists.

"Pull the car over."

Every word was bitten off, burning with her barely contained rage, and Tristan's startled glance in her direction was testament to the fact that she had rarely – if ever – been this angry before.

"Rory... It's almost the middle of the..."

"Pull the _fucking_ car over _right now_!"

Tristan's double-take might have been funny under any other circumstances, but Rory wasn't to be amused by anything at this point. When only minutes later Tristan had pulled the car over, Rory unbuckled her seatbelt, before pushing the door open and stumbling slightly in her haste to get out.

Slamming the door behind her, she began storming off into the night, refusing to remain for another second in the company of the young man she had once found herself so smitten with and now couldn't stand the sight of. The sound of another car door slamming and the automatic lock securing the convertible told Rory quite clearly that Tristan was coming after her.

"Rory. Don't. It's the middle of the night. At least let me take you the rest of the way home."

She shook off the hand that sought to ensnare her upper arm, turning suddenly to face him and bringing her hand around in a stinging slap to the side of his face. "Stay the _hell_ away from me!" she snarled at him; her eyes dark with anger, her fury burning clearly for all to see.

"Rory."

"I don't _need_ you, Tristan. Leave me the hell alone!"

Despite her anger at him, and the fact that she was _clearly_ not any fan of his at the moment – and probably wouldn't be for a long time to come – Tristan wasn't about to just drive off and leave her there. Forget the fact that it was somewhere between an eight to ten hour walk back to Yale, it was dangerous walking alone on a highway at night, especially for a young woman like Rory.

"I can't do that," he informed her, holding his hands out palm up, as though to indicate that this was completely out of his hands. When he took another step towards her, she backed hastily off, shaking her head quickly. "Please... Just get back in the car."

"Go to hell," she answered snappily, and when he moved towards her again, she turned and started walking away.

Sighing with his own anger at her irrationality, Tristan ran the few steps that still separated them and grabbed her arm, pulling her back around to face him.

"Get _off_ me!" she screamed at him, her small hands striking out at him as he dragged her back the way they'd come; back towards his car. "Let go of me! Let _go_!"

When he reached the side of his car, he pulled open the door with his free hand and propelled her forwards – still fighting him – towards it. Her shrieks as he did so, became more insistent, and he began to fear that should anyone stumble across the two they might think the worst of him and perhaps attempt to intervene. He didn't want to think about what might happen then.

"Rory, stop it! I just want to get you _home_, for God's sake!"

"I don't _want_ your help!" she yelled at him, yanking her arm fiercely from his grasp, not concerned at all – apparently – that the violent action would more than likely leave a bruise, considering just how tightly he'd been holding her arm. "Leave me alone!"

And when she turned again to go, Tristan ran the short distance and circled around in front of her, capturing both of her arms in his, shaking her slightly to get those blazing eyes to look up at him. "Rory, you're not walking. I'm taking you home. Stop it!"

When she fought him again, kicking and screaming in his grip, it was the first time that night that Tristan had thought that there was something else going on beneath her anger, the ferocity of her fists, the anger behind them... Not all of it was directed at him.

Blocking what he could, he held her close until her yells and her screams slowly morphed into heart-rending sobs, her small body collapsing into his arms, and her slender fingers clutching at the material of his shirt.

"Oh _God_, Tristan!" she sobbed as all her anger drained out of her, leaving only an endless misery that he didn't understand at all, and he felt her salty tears sting his neck where moments before her nails had torn through skin. "How did I get here? I don't know what I want anymore. I don't know what I'm supposed to _do_ with my life! I just... I don't...I can't..." but her words were lost as they dissolved in the tears that slid down her pixie face as she buried her face in his neck.

Tristan didn't have the answers she needed of course. He didn't know what he could possibly say to help her, his own problems unsolvable in his own eyes and so all-consuming that sorting through Rory's problems seemed near impossible. Instead of communicating this however, he just shook his head gently – one arm tightly circling her shoulders and pulling her close, his other hand gently cradling the back of her head – murmuring soothing words into her ear.

"It's going to be alright, Rory," he assured her. "It's all going to be fine. I promise. I'm here."

Although if truth be told, he wasn't really sure how he was supposed to help.


	10. Mistakes and Their Consequences

**Author's Note:** Hey guys! Sorry for the huge break. The new seasons of all my favourite TV series came out recently, and couple that with my fascination with this fic I'm writing for a friend of mine, and reading those Twilight books (for those who _haven't_ read them yet, do!) and in the end found that all my time seemed to drain away.

Know, party people, that I haven't forgotten you, and that I fully intend to continue with this story! Hopefully with a hell of a lot more frequency. Enjoy this chapter, and I'll try get the next one up ASAP.

* * *

Rory came awake slowly, her mind not functioning at all properly, struggling to remember just where she was, and what had happened the night before.

She couldn't remember much of it, but knew that this was not due to the consumption of great quantities of alcohol. She could remember being at her mother's place, so perhaps she was there? She took a long moment to force herself to open her eyes, realising seconds later that this involved _far_ too much effort, and instead merely assessed her present location with her other senses.

_Not_ in her mother's house. It _certainly_ had the wrong feel and smell to be her mother's place.

Okay. So that still left plenty of options. There were plenty of places she may have spent the night.

Like her car. She mocked herself in her mind, but knew that it had happened before – too tired to drive, she'd simply fallen into her car and seconds later had fallen asleep. That seemed more likely, considering the fact that she'd been out late... at her parents.

_Tristan_.

She tried to force her eyes open as her mind whispered the name into her thoughts, but they remained closed despite all her efforts, her body telling her off for even _considering_ being awake so early in the morning. Still, despite this fact, she _did_ feel a warm body beside her, but seconds later she realised that she wasn't lying down – perhaps the original reason she'd thought she was in her car.

Yet the soft smell surrounding them – excluding that amazing smell that seemed to follow Tristan wherever he went, drawing girls in – wasn't anything _like_ his dorm room, and she did remember them not making it back to Yale. Odd.

_His car_.

Her mind whispered the possibility, and she considered it momentarily, before shaking the thought off. No. The air wasn't close enough to be inside a car, but she _could_ smell leather. Really soft leather, if the comfort of her back was any indication.

Still, her possibilities exhausted, she fought her body tooth and nail for a moment, struggling to open her eyes. When she finally did, she had no idea where she was at all, yet for some reason she had the strangest feeling of déjà vu.

She was seated in a warm living room, furnished with reds, whites, browns and blacks, everything in here in pristine condition, as though it had never been used. The thick carpet that she could feel beneath her feet – for she discovered that her shoes were missing – was lush and obviously expensive, so where...

And then it came back to her.

She'd seen this place many times in the past, but not for a long time, and some things had been changed, some had been moved. They were at Tristan's house. In Hartford.

She sat up quickly, blood rushing angrily around her head at the sudden movement until she felt faint and leaned back again, her hand to her forehead, groaning in dismay.

It was to this that Tristan awoke, his dark blue eyes seeking hers, filled confusion in the 'just awoken' fuzziness. When she turned her face slightly to look at him, she felt embarrassment creeping up her cheeks at the sight of his face. Covered in cuts, scratches and numerous bruises, Rory winced as she felt sympathy pains for every single one of the wounds she could see on the young man's face.

"Oh _god_, I'm so sorry," she murmured, leaning forwards and out of his embrace, using the excuse that she was cradling her whirling head her on her knees to avoid any awkwardness – not that there wasn't enough of that.

Tristan managed to look confused for a few seconds, his forehead creasing, a frown tugging at his mouth, until that movement pulled at the split lip and he winced slightly in pain. "Ah. That."

She lifted her head from her knees to look at him, smiling apologetically, before launching herself off the couch and making a beeline for the bathroom a short way down the hallway. "Wait right there," she ordered, and Tristan, whether too hurt or too bleary from his recent awakening, obeyed her. Soon enough she was back, armed to the teeth with antiseptic, cloths and tissues.

Tristan groaned and turned his face away.

"Now you listen, buster," Rory began, sitting calmly beside him, fully awake somehow, despite her earlier fuzziness, amused at the babyish way that he turned from her. "We have to get you all cleaned up. You look like something straight out of Resident Evil."

Tristan looked back, obviously fighting a smile and losing seconds later, a sudden wince of pain crossing his handsome features the minute that he did so; the cut on his lip had torn again, and fresh drops of blood oozed slowly from his lip.

Wrapping a tissue carefully around a finger, she put a few drops of the antiseptic on the tissue, before reaching over slowly, her words warning him only seconds before her finger touched his lip. "This may sting."

"Oh _god!_" Tristan cried out, turning his face away, and only a split second before he turned it from her view, she witnessed the pain that shot across his features. "Ow, that _hurts!_"

"Stop being such a baby," Rory shot at him, and he turned back in surprise at her tone, his brows risen on his forehead, dark blue eyes watching her carefully as she leaned towards him again, this time catching his chin in her free hand before touching the tissue to his lip. He winced again, but made no move to pull away, instead his eyes almost riveted on her face.

After he said nothing for a long moment, she moved her eyes to find his, looking up from his lips and the temptations that looking at them brought swirling into her mind. "What are you thinking?"

Tristan looked surprised at the question, and she felt a slight tug against her hand, as though he had been tempted to escape from her gaze. Seconds later however, he shrugged, and dismissed her concern with smiling eyes – his mouth didn't move at all – offering her a brief wink. It was at this point that she shook her head with a smile, her eyes flicking back to his lips, dabbing it a couple more times before she sat back, releasing his face and releasing his chin.

"There. Right as rain."

It looked like he was about to pout, before the slight twinge in his lip changed his mind. "It still hurts," he offered, the almost neutral expression not quite so effective as the pout might have been, but she got the message anyway.

"You want me to kiss it better?" she cooed without thinking, her heart thudding suddenly in her chest when he replied without a thought.

"Sure, if it's on the table."

Deciding quite quickly that kissing him was simply not an option on _any_ level, Rory just shot him a quick glare, at which point Tristan just chuckled, his easy-going nature hiding again whether or not he might have been serious with his jest. Ever since that night in his dorm room, when passion and need had escalated to breaking point, they hadn't even attempted to the touch the issue of what it was burning between them. Not since Tristan had said he wasn't ready for a relationship.

Because of Oxford.

"So... You heard all my problems last night," – they'd talked in depth about the issues surrounding her friendship with Dean, and the feelings that remained within her for the tall boy – "But we didn't go anywhere _near_ your issues."

Tristan's face closed off again, just as it would always do when she brought up what had happened to him in Oxford. He didn't want to talk about it, and had no qualms shooting her questions down in any way he could possibly think of. Sometimes he laughed it off, sometimes he completely shut down, and sometimes he even allowed himself to resort to anger. Each and every time he'd sidestepped her questions, and this time it seemed as though he was choosing the 'shutting down' way.

"I don't trust people."

Rory just watched him silently for a long moment, realising quickly that it seemed as though he were struggling to find something to say. Figuring she should probably help him out, her brows rose to her forehead as she replied, unable to keep her tone from being slightly offended after his blunt statement of fact.

"So you're not telling me because you don't trust me?"

Tristan looked up in surprise, as though confused to find that she was still there, his eyes darker with whatever memories haunted him, looking up at her as though accusing her of his misery and depression. "What?" he asked, his tone puzzled as he contemplated her words, shaking his head quickly when he realised what it was she had meant by those spoken words. "No. _No! _Oh _god_ no! I didn't mean that I don't trust you. It's just..." and his voice faltered, his eyes skittering away again as he struggled to find something to say to her. "It's how the story starts..."

Rory sat up in surprise, realising for the first time that he was actually trying to begin his story, shaking her head quickly to assure him that an apology was not required, and gesturing with her hands for him to continue – at this point she didn't want to speak in case she said the wrong thing and ruined the moment.

"All my trust issues... I guess in a way they all stem from my short time at Oxford," and he sighed deeply, as though struggling with a heavy load someone had just placed on his shoulders. "I guess to begin, I have to tell you that I hadn't really changed from my time at school."

Rory managed to look confused for a moment, and Tristan fought back a smile, the corners of his lips tugging in amusement that even after everything that she knew about him, and everything that had happened with her over the past few years, that she was still naive enough not to understand what he meant by that. He clarified everything for her with three words.

"I slept around."

"Ah..." Rory flushed with embarrassment, and Tristan had to chuckle momentarily in amusement, before continuing with his story.

"I guess I wasn't _expecting_ to become attached to anyone, and so I let myself believe after we broke up that there wasn't anyone else out there for me. That I was supposed to have you, and that I screwed up and that was it for me."

"Tristan, that's just stupid."

He shrugged. "Stupid or not, it's the truth, and there's not really a lot I can do about it now. That was all in the past."

"So you met someone."

Tristan hesitated at her words, catching something in her voice maybe, and shooting her a quick look until she hurriedly suppressed the emotions that she hadn't realised had crossed her face. Was she really jealous of a young woman who Tristan had _clearly_ left back in England? Was she really that pathetic? She didn't have time to contemplate the answer to those questions, because Tristan was speaking again.

"Yes and no."

When she simply raised her brows in question to her forehead, Tristan chuckled mirthlessly, shaking his head. "It just sort of happened that we were thrown together one night. One of my friends thought she'd be perfect for me, and that she'd make me want to settle down."

"And they were right?"

Tristan just laughed and shook his head. "Actually no. The exact opposite. She was small," and his eyes were distant as he conjured up the memory of the young woman in his mind. Whilst his eyes were so far away, Rory allowed herself to give in to her jealousy for a moment, the anger flashing briefly in her eyes before she locked it away again when Tristan's eyes came back from wherever it was they'd been visiting. "Very petite, with straight brown hair to the middle of her back, and the greenest eyes you could have imagined." He shrugged. "She was very pretty, and maybe in the past I might have been interested."

Rory sensed there was a 'but' in here somewhere, and she prompted him with it. "But?"

Tristan sighed, his eyes finding hers again, and she offered him an encouraging smile that he didn't seem to see at all. "But she reminded me too much of you."

Rory's brows shot to her forehead at that. It was certainly not what she'd been expecting from him. Her mind had automatically conjured up a lovely story of the two meeting and falling in love, something that she knew by now would have been impossible. Tristan, for all intents and purposes, was still Tristan, and commitment was still something of an issue for him. She felt bad that she had been part of the reason for his shying away from people, but what had happened between them could not have been helped.

"But that's not the whole story, is it?" she asked, bright blue eyes watching him steadily for a long moment, as though trying to assess just what it was that he was trying to skirt around. "That's not what made you," and she gestured her hand briefly at him, blue eyes sad. "Like this."

He shook his head. "No. Turns out that the girl who looks almost miraculously like you was nothing like you. She had none of your innocence, which was perfectly fine with me at the time, and none of that quirky personality that makes you, well... _you_." Rory had to smile at those words, shaking her head in amusement. Tristan's expression however, didn't lighten for even a moment. "Turns out it was a huge mistake."

"What was?"

"Sleeping with her."

Rory just watched him in silence, waiting for him to continue, and it was almost a full minute later that Rory realised he wasn't going to without something of a little push. "Why was that a mistake?"

Tristan's eyes lifted to find hers, pain-filled and almost unbearably miserable. What was it that had almost broken him in such a way? How could he feel so awfully hurt by this one young woman who had meant almost nothing to him? He had admitted that himself, so how...

Her thoughts trailed off into oblivion when she finally caught on to where it was that he was going, her eyes widening in surprise as she stared at him in complete and utter shock, unable to really come to terms with what it was that he was trying to tell her.

"She... I mean... You..."

But she couldn't get the words out, and in the end Tristan just nodded his confirmation. "Yeah. She came and told me she was pregnant."

"It wasn't yours?" and Rory's tone was almost hopeful as she asked the question, Tristan's next look almost quizzical as he caught something of that emotion, but dismissed it seconds later with a bit of a shrug.

"I doubted it at first, because she was something of a..." and when he searched for the word, Rory offered one helpfully.

"Slut?"

Tristan just chuckled, nodding his acceptance of the word and continuing. "Yeah. A slut. She had a test done though, and it came back positive." He sighed, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "I was the father."

Rory just stared, fighting the rising hurt and pain that his words caused, realising quite quickly just how stupid those feelings were. What was her problem? Why was this bothering her so much? Law of averages said that a guy who slept around as often as Tristan had in the past would eventually end up impregnating some of those girls along the way. So why was this knowledge of Tristan being the father of some other girl's baby wigging her so very much.

"You... have a kid?"

Tristan just stared at her hopelessly for a moment, before he replied.


	11. You're Something of a Shrink

**Author's Note:** _So _sorry guys! I'm so awful making you all wait this long. The last book in the Twilight series came out, which sent me off on _another_ reading spree, and I totally forgot about the land of writing. I'll try throw out the other chapters faster in the future. Shouldn't be too many more to go after this one... so never fear.

Thanks for all those who've stuck with me over these _huge_ hiatuses! I promise to be better in future. Anyway... You've waited long enough... Hope you enjoy...

* * *

"No. I don't."

Tristan was shaking his head in reply to her question, and Rory felt a sudden burst of relief before she realised that he was not smiling. Her insides froze, as did the rest of her as her eyes fixed carefully on the side of his face, brows pulled towards her nose in concern.

"And that's the problem, isn't it?"

He sighed, looking away from her gaze when she sought his; dark blue eyes avoiding her face, and riveted on the floor of his family's living room. There was a long moment of silence then, and Rory was unsure whether or not she was supposed to say something. Her instincts however, told her not to say a word, to let him break what was quickly becoming an awkward silence. The last thing she wanted him to do now was to shy away from this conversation; to stop before she had the whole story.

Finally, after an immeasurably long time, he breathed out heavily, his eyes refusing to be moved from the floor as he nodded in answer to her question. "Yes."

Rory felt something in her stomach twist uneasily when she saw the misery on his face, her determination to get this out of him waning with every passing second. She saw what reliving it was doing to him, how it tortured him, and she didn't want to be the one putting him through this. Yet it seemed that he was more than willing to continue now on his own.

"I wasn't expecting it," he spoke then, drawing her eyes from the curtains to which they had been unwillingly pulled, obviously in a subconscious decision to try and deal with this revelation. "To be so broken up over this."

Rory sighed, sliding closer until she was leaning slightly against him, her arm moving to his back, hand rubbing his shoulder blades gently. "I'm sorry."

So close was his face that when he turned it she could have kissed him had she been only a few centimetres closer. Her breath caught in her throat, but she forced her sympathy to remain fixed on her face, hoping he wouldn't see how much this conversation was bothering her.

"About what?"

"Huh?"

Tristan sighed, shaking his head again and looking away. "What are you sorry about? You don't even know what _happened_."

His voice was angry and bitter, and she recoiled momentarily away, before realising quickly that none of this anger was directed at her. Returning her hand to his back, she slid it up over his shoulder blade and clasped his shoulder gently.

"Tell me."

She knew that he needed to talk about it, no matter how much she really didn't want to listen. He needed her to talk to, and she would be there for him as long as he needed her. She hated seeing him like this, broken and unsure of himself; awkward in ways that Tristan DuGrey was never meant to be.

"Kate had an abortion."

Rory didn't know what to say. She didn't want to sound completely ridiculous, yet she'd thought that, more than anything else, Tristan was the sort of guy who might encourage such an idea, especially in a girl with whom he shared no real connection. She knew with a surety that if she'd been put in just such a situation when they were dating, he would have asked it of her. Then again, they'd been in high school... It wasn't quite the same thing, she acknowledged, what with their now being in college. She just couldn't see him changing so much in just a couple of years.

"Kate?"

She didn't know what to say to the rest of it; her mind didn't seem to be working properly, and so she queried the name of the young woman. She wasn't entirely sure he was listening to her anyway, and anything she said might make him continue with his story – one she wasn't quite sure she wanted to hear.

It seemed that he was paying attention when he turned his face to frown momentarily at her, blue eyes confused as to how she could have forgotten the earlier half of his story so quickly.

"The girl. From the party? The one I got _pregnant_?"

His voice was almost angry, and Rory had to control the urge to move away from him; to keep her distance and avoid him altogether. She just shrugged, telling him she didn't really know why she'd asked, and he turned away with a frustrated sigh.

"Why the hell am I telling _you_ this?" he demanded, more of himself than of her, as he launched himself out of the seat beside her, beginning to pace angrily across the floor of the large living area. "This is probably the _last_ thing _you_ want to hear."

Rory sighed, shaking her head slowly, watching his angry strides as he paced in front of her, back and forth. "It doesn't matter if I want to hear it or not. You _need_ to talk about this, Tristan. You can't keep it all bottled up."

"Why not?" he shot back, his eyes narrowed, the words he spoke almost a snarl. "Why shouldn't I just keep this all to myself? It's no one's problem but my own."

"But it's _changing_ you, Tristan. You're not the person we all knew back in high school."

Tristan just laughed mirthlessly, coming to a standstill before her, his dark blue eyes fixed on hers, one brow sliding to his forehead in what might have been amusement had his face not been so bitter. "Have you ever stopped to think that perhaps that's not such a bad thing?"

Rory recoiled as though she'd been struck, staring at him in some sort of confused horror. "Tristan, you weren't a bad guy back then."

"But you broke it off, or don't you remember that?" he almost snarled back at her, dark blue eyes flashing in anger, thought deep down where no doubt he _hoped_ she wouldn't see, she could read that pain he still carried around that had everything to do with their failed relationship.

"Tristan... That was _years_ ago!"

"Yeah," he shot back, stopping his pacing so he could look at her directly. "It was years ago, so naturally I should just put it out of my mind and forget about the whole thing, right? Like it never happened?"

Rory frowned, hurt by his bitter and angry words, although she couldn't quite understand why that was. After all, she'd done nothing to warrant this attack. It had been he who had driven her away back in the days of their relationship, and she didn't like that he was blaming this all on her. Yet she knew that, despite the obvious meaning behind the attack, she was not actually the reason for his anger. Whatever it was that he'd bottled up, it was something more than what he'd told her. Yet she knew also that she was so very close.

"It _did_ happen, Tristan," she spoke, her voice soft in an attempt to calm him down. "And I'm glad that it did. I wouldn't give that time back for anything," she explained slowly, calmly, hoping that her words might get through to what she knew must be a slightly irrational mind – at least at the moment. "But it's over. That _was_ a long time ago."

Her last words were the wrong ones to use, because whilst his face softened a little at her first words, his eyes hardened again as she continued. "So you admit it. You're better off without me? I'm not the sort of guy a girl ends up with, huh? I can't be trusted with supporting a family? I'm too flaky, right?"

She frowned at him, confused once more by the attack, although she knew that she was getting closer to the truth of his dilemma, why it was that he was so broken now. "What are you talking about?"

He sighed heavily then, shaking his head and falling back to the couch beside her. "Nothing. Nothing." He shook his head. "Rory... it's not about you."

She watched him carefully for a long moment, watching how he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees as he stared almost sullenly at his hands. "That's why she did it, wasn't it?" and his dark blue eyes turned back to hers. "That's why she had the abortion. She decided you weren't ready to have a kid, and so she got rid of it."

Tristan's eyes closed – pained, she realised – at her words, before a slow nod confirmed them. "She said that I was just a big kid myself. That I wasn't mature enough to handle a kid. She didn't even..." he shook his head. "Didn't even give me a choice. She didn't tell me until afterwards what she was doing..." He shook his head, and buried his face in his hands, sighing deeply. "I guess I thought it wouldn't affect me like it has, but I realised something for the first time in my life. I'm not _that_ guy, you know? I'm not the guy that the girls see themselves settling down with. They don't see me as the 'get married and have kids' type, and sure... I can't see that happening now. But never?"

He sighed again, sitting back up and leaning back into the couch, closing his eyes as though he refused to even look at her anymore. "To the girls I meet, I'm the party kind of guy; the one who girls hook up with casually at a party, then never see again. I'm not a Dean. I'm not _'safe'_."

Rory had to laugh at the word that he chose, her eyes sparkling almost merrily – were it not for the current mood, she might have gone into a fit of giggles – at him. Hearing the soft laugh, he opened his eyes, frowning slightly, his eyes confused, and not upset but almost relieved at the interruption.

"What?"

"Nothing, I just..." and when he continued to watch her quizzically, she just shrugged. "I can remember a time when being the 'safe' guy wasn't such a good thing. Do I remember correctly, or was it someone else who told Dean that being the 'safe' guy only takes you so far before things end?"

Tristan did smile, she was pleased to notice, though it was wan and barely touched his eyes. "I did, didn't I?"

She nodded, smiling back, and it seemed that he was about to let her words end the conversation before it became serious again. Realising of course, that should she allow that, she would more than likely never get a chance like this again, she continued.

"Look, Tristan, you may not be the Dean type; the whole, get married early, live happily ever after type," – Tristan struggled not to point out that Dean's still being in love with Rory made his life far less than a fairytale – "But that doesn't mean that you never will. Maybe you won't get married right away, or anytime in the near future, but that doesn't mean that you won't find a girl who makes you feel like you _can_ spend forever with her. Whatever that _Kate_," and she slurred the name as though the girl were something disgusting. "Girl said, it isn't true. She just wanted to put the blame for everything on someone else. She didn't want to keep the baby, and decided to hold you responsible for everything as an excuse to terminate it."

Tristan had sat up a little at this point, frowning at her in thoughtful confusion as she continued. "After all, if she really was mature enough, and if she really had qualms about terminating, she could have had the kid and been a single mother. It's been done before, and it's not like you're financially inept. She could have asked for child support..." She shrugged. "This _isn't_ your fault, Tristan. None of it. You just happened to know a particularly vindictive bitch who can't take responsibility for her own choices."

Tristan actually chuckled at her words, his eyes meeting hers for the first time in what felt like forever. "Ah... Me and my girls... I do tend to pick 'em, huh?" and the way his brow rose on his forehead indicated just who he included in that assessment. Slapping him fiercely on the chest, she launched herself off the couch and stood before him, folding her arms and throwing her nose in the air with a haughty sniff. Laughing at her antics, Tristan reached out and tugged at her arm, pulling her back to the couch, seated now on his lap.

"And what about you?" he asked, his voice suddenly serious again, though his bearing seemed as though he'd had a significant weight removed from his shoulders. "With this whole Dean thing?"

Rory, halfway through a giggle, sobered up instantly, biting her lip at the suddenness of the question, despite knowing – especially after her behaviour the previous night – that the question was, in fact, completely inevitable. "Honestly. I don't really know," she replied, sliding out his lap and seating herself beside him on the couch again. She looked away, her eyes falling to the hands she had folded in her lap. "I guess it kind of crept up on me. Regret, you know? Dean was my first boyfriend; the first boy I ever loved. I guess at first it was just weird seeing him with Lindsay, and after a while, what with MY current dating record, I think it was just too easy to be jealous of what she had."

Tristan nodded thoughtfully. "So it's not so much the fact that Lindsay has Dean, as the fact that Lindsay has her happily ever after?"

Rory was thoughtful for a long moment, before finally nodding. "Yeah. I guess so. At the same time though, Dean kind of comes into it. I have other friends who're married now," she explained with a shrug. "But I've never been jealous of any of them. It's specifically Dean."

Tristan nodded, processing that thought for a moment it seemed, and obviously struggling with it, for she saw the sudden darkening of his eyes. "Okay... So maybe it _is_ the fact that you guys dated. That he was your first love." He turned a little on the couch to face her. "Perhaps that's just the thing. Because you _were_ so close, if things," and he indicated himself with a thumb at his chest and such a wicked grin that Rory couldn't help but laugh at the expression. "Hadn't happened to break the two of you up, you _would_ have been Lindsay," he pointed out, and Rory, startled by this new point of view, allowed herself to think this through.

"Okay. So you think it's just because it was so close to home that it affects me?"

Tristan nodded. "And perhaps this isn't about still being in love with Dean, or still having a crush on Dean. Perhaps this is more about you wishing you were in a relationship like that; a functional one," and although his face looked a little sceptical at his assessment of the situation, she gave him the point. When she didn't speak for a long time, obviously trying to sort this out in her head, Tristan continued. "What you have to ask yourself in this case is, that if Dean had been _your_ boyfriend at the time, and if he had proposed to _you_, would _you_ have said yes?"

Rory looked startled for a long moment, surprised by the suddenness of the question, whilst at the same time quickly coming to her conclusion. "No. I would have waited for school to be over."

Tristan nodded. "Exactly. You're not Lindsay. And sure, despite that, Dean would have likely waited for you to graduate and all that, and a happily ever after _might_ have been in your future, but at the same time, think of just how much you've changed over the years. Nothing ever stays the same, and so how can you expect that of your relationship with Dean. Things would have gotten in the way, time would have been short together, drifting in such a case is inevitable. Not to _mention_ a rejection of a proposal _never_ has a great affect on a relationship."

Rory frowned. "What? Boys get all pouty and petulant if they don't get their way?" she teased, and Tristan chuckled with a shrug.

"Sometimes we do."

Rory just grinned back at him for a moment, thoughtful; her eyes shining. "Wow, Mr DuGrey. You should be a shrink, not a doctor."

Tristan laughed back. "Right back at you... naturally substituting journalist for doctor."

She stuck her tongue out at him playfully, her eyes flashing in amusement. Then next second, before she could be caught by the sparkle in those gorgeous eyes of his, she launched herself back to her feet, slapping his knee playfully. "Come on, DuGrey. Let's get back to school and see if it survived our absence."

He grinned back at her, joining her on her feet.

"Sure thing, Mary,"


	12. It Wasn’t An Ultimatum

**Author's Note:** Okay... I'm horrible. I'm terrible. I'm a jerk! I can't believe I made you guys all wait this long for the next chapter, after I promised that I wouldn't. I don't have a great excuse either, to be entirely honest. I just got caught up in my other writing, and completely forgot this one. I hope you guys can forgive me for making you wait.

For all you guys who've been with me from the beginning, I thank you for your patience and perseverance waiting for this chapter. Almost done. I think this one has one more chapter and an epilogue... Hope you enjoy. Review if you do. Let me know what you guys think...

* * *

It was almost a week later that he saw her again, walking through the halls with her head down and a dark frown on her face. Sneaking up behind her, before snatching her books from her hands and falling into step beside her, he offered her a charming smile as he slung his free arm around her shoulders. To anyone else, it might have looked as though they were dating, he carrying her books like he was, instead of the truth of the matter; they'd simply become friends like they'd never been before. Just friends.

Not that the other feelings _weren't_ there, after all. It was hard to ignore the fact that he was so attracted to the young woman. Hard to ignore the fact that his issues and problems felt significantly lighter thanks to her advice and reassurances. She had him feeling more human and capable of being the traditional meaning of the word 'normal' than he had been feeling a _long_ time.

Still. Things with Rory hadn't really changed much. It was as though she wanted him for only his friendship, and after the two rejections he'd offered her before, he wasn't quite sure that he really blamed her. Why should she think that he was interested in her like he used to be; that he was willing to give things a chance again? Why would she even _consider_ pursuing something like that again, when she had Logan? The two seemed to have reconciled a lot of their issues in the past week, and although things hadn't quite reached their previous status, they were clearly heading in that direction.

"Hey Mary. How's your day?"

She just glanced up at him, and for a moment, he presumed that her dark look had everything to do with the fact that it was Monday afternoon, and she had another class in an hour when she wanted to sleep. Common enough, after a weekend. At least for Rory Gilmore. Then, after holding her gaze a long moment, he was frowning darkly in concern.

"What happened?"

Rory looked away, biting her lip as she hurried forwards, as though to escape his words and his attention, shaking her head in dismissal as he kept pace with her.

"It's nothing. Nothing to worry about."

"Rory," and she looked up at him when he spoke in that tone; his eyes speaking for him. He would listen; he wouldn't judge. "You can tell me."

She sighed, looking away for a moment, before stopping dead where she was and meeting his gaze. "It's Dean."

He tensed almost automatically at the sound of the name, and Rory's flinch pulled him out of his dark thoughts as he moved to catch her arm, preventing her from turning away.

"Sorry. Instinct," he apologised, and although understanding arose almost immediately in those big blue eyes, her hesitation remained firmly in place. "You can tell me. I swear I won't over-react."

One slender brow rose to her forehead, and despite her mood, a slight smile tugged at her lips. "Really? You promise?"

He paused a moment, thinking that through before a mirroring smile touched his lips. "I promise to _try_..."

Rory laughed shortly, before her expression sobered, and she hesitated again, looking around the crowded hallway as though searching for something or someone. Logan, he realised with a keen sense of disappointment. Searching for the boy who seemed to have captured her interest, if not quite yet her heart. Then she looked back to him with a sigh.

"Not here."

* * *

"He _what_?" and Tristan's face was livid, Rory almost cringing away from the dark anger blazing there, clear as day. "He _didn't_!"

Rory just nodded, confirming the words she'd just spoken, her eyes downcast and staring at the ground. "Yeah. Apparently what you said the previous weekend was the beginning of the end for them. Lindsay confronted him about it, and there was a lot of screaming..." she shrugged, her blue eyes rising to meet his momentarily, before falling again when she saw the dangerous anger glaring out.

"And he thinks that separating from his wife means that he can proposition you the very next weekend?" he asked, and his voice was tight with controlled fury. Rory just nodded sadly.

"Apparently."

"And Lindsay..."

Rory nodded again. "Overheard."

"And she overheard you telling the guy to go to hell, right?"

Rory swallowed heavily, her brows pulling together over her nose, her blue eyes filled with some kind of personal tragedy.

"You did tell him to go to hell, right?" Tristan asked, though his tone made his question more of a demand. "You didn't..."

But Rory looked up, shaking her head furiously, blue eyes widening momentarily in horror. "No! _God_ no!" and she shook her head again, a slight shudder rippling down her slender body. "Lindsay overheard me telling Dean," and her throat seemed to close when she spoke the name, almost choking around it. She swallowed and tried again. "Telling Dean that I didn't love him. That my fairytale had nothing to do him anymore."

"And..."

She just shrugged. "I don't THINK Lindsay is upset with me, except by default, as the girl who her husband was still in love with..." she sighed, shaking her head. "I just can't help but think that this is all my fault."

Tristan reached out to grab her arm, shaking his head vehemently. "No. Don't you _dare_, Rory. Don't you _dare_ take the blame for this one. This isn't your fault! None of it!"

She sighed sadly, her eyes refusing to lift to meet his. "But I didn't do anything about it. I didn't stop it before it got too far. I just let it continue. I continued to spend time with Dean, even though I knew that he still liked me. I just..." and she shook her head. "I can't help but think –"

"No!" and he shook her gently, leaning forward to peer up into her face, his dark blue eyes fiercely defensive. Of her, she realised with surprise. "You were being his friend! You were always only just being his friend!"

She just shrugged miserably, not convinced, but not willing to argue the facts further. "It's not Lindsay not liking me that I can't stand. It's... It's her friends, and her mother..." she shook her head. "Whenever I walk past, they just glare and whisper, as though I manipulated the whole thing, as though I purposely tried to break the two of them up," her voice was almost hysterical by the end. "As though I _wanted_ –"

She was silenced by the stinging slap to her face, her eyes widening in shock, staring at the young man before her with something much like hurt in written clearly across her face.

"What was that –"

But Tristan was shaking his head, and in her confused and stunned state, Rory fell silent, listening to him.

"No matter what anyone says, you didn't want this!" he hissed under his breath, his eyes almost furious, and although he knew the words would cause him some sort of pain, he uttered them anyway. "You have Logan now. Dean was a relationship of the past. There's nothing there anymore, but friendship. Logan has your heart now. Don't let what everyone else thinks affect you, Rory. You're stronger than that."

She just watched him in silence with big, sad eyes, the bright blue darker with her misery, and she shook her head. "I know you're right," she sighed at last, looking away again and back at her hands, twisted in her lap. When Tristan noticed where her gaze rested, he reached out and covered her hands with one of his own, squeezing them gently; reassuring.

"Of _course_ I'm right. When am I not?"

Her sad smile suggested that she knew of a time, but she didn't speak of it aloud, leaving him in the dark. What Tristan couldn't know – could _never_ know – was that it wasn't Logan who had her heart. She knew she could tell him, and that things could potentially be the way they were before, during high school. But this was the whole problem. Memories of the pain she'd dealt with when he'd begun to lose interest were still sharp in her mind. She could still remember the devastation she had felt when she'd had to break up with him, and the torturous feelings when she'd seen him in the halls afterwards, and then later with other girls. It had been too much then, and she didn't want to have to go through that again.

Being with Logan was easier.

Despite the hurt she felt when thinking of Logan's other girls Rory knew that these feelings were nothing in comparison to what she knew she would feel if things with Tristan didn't work out again. She knew she was being stupid, of course. If she was still in love with Tristan, why exactly was she allowing herself to be with Logan? She knew she wasn't the 'casual relationship' sort of girl. It was clear every single time she saw Logan with another girl, or if he even alluded to another girl; the jealousy she felt each time a clear indication that it wasn't working for her anymore.

So why was she still with him?

"Are you going to be okay?"

She looked up, surprised, forgetting for the moment that Tristan was still there, blue eyes studying the young man's face and its close proximity for a long moment, their eyes meeting only briefly before she turned away with a slow nod.

"I think so."

"You don't sound so sure of that."

Rory just shrugged. "Sure, things aren't perfect, but really... when is life ever perfect?"

Tristan paused a long moment, a frown tugging his brows together over his nose once again. "This doesn't sound like the Rory I used to know."

Rory sighed, shaking her head. "The Rory you knew in high school doesn't exist anymore."

"Well that's a shame. I really liked that girl," Tristan answered easily with a small smile, tightening his arm around her in a brief hug.

Rory answered without thinking. "But she wasn't good enough for you."

Tristan froze at her words, his breathing silent, as though he'd maybe stopped breathing entirely. There was a long silence this time, and after almost two whole minutes of silence, she began to wonder if he would speak again.

"I never said that."

Rory knew from the tone of his voice that they were in dangerous territory right now, but at the same time, she decided that she had to see this whole conversation out. This had been hanging over the both of them from the moment they'd seen one another again. The reasons they broken up to begin with; the reasons they hadn't spoken since high school. It had all been glazed over from that first moment in Yale, dismissed and not spoken of, though definitely on her mind; something that she couldn't ignore forever, something that had to be addressed if they were to ever accept one another fully.

"Your behaviour implied it."

Tristan's pause was a long one again, his eyes staring off into the distance, not seeing anything around them; not the quiet scenery of one of Yale's small gardens, nor the few people – couples mostly – strolling through the quiet scenery. She noticed that his free hand was gripping the seat of the small park bench on which they sat with almost ferocious strength.

"If you're not careful, you're going to break the bench, Tristan."

Tristan shot a brief look at her, the emotions in his eyes something that she couldn't quite interpret – something of a mix between surprise and fear, if she didn't miss her guess, which made absolutely _no_ sense – before he looked away again, releasing his grip on the bench, and shaking his head.

"I didn't mean it."

She knew he wasn't talking about the bench.

"I know you didn't, Tristan, but your chose your reputation and standing in that school above me, and it really hurt."

He closed his eyes slowly, deepest regret crossing his face, his expression almost pained as he took a deep breath, letting it out in a loud sigh before he spoke again. "Does this really matter anymore? It was years ago."

Rory looked away then, looking down, kicking absently at the grass under her feet as she shrugged, trying to keep her face neutral as she felt his eyes turn to look at her. "It matters to me."

Tristan sighed then, and she looked up in time to see his eyes dance away from hers again. "Rory..."

"I'm sorry."

Tristan was perplexed by her apology, a frown tugging at his lips. "What? Why are _you_ sorry?"

She shook her head, wishing now that she hadn't brought any of it up. "You're right. It was a long time ago. I shouldn't have brought it up."

He watched her for a long minute, dark blue eyes studying her face as a blush slowly coloured her cheeks. It only deepened when he brushed his fingers across the darkened skin, and he sighed again, shaking his head and looking away. "Honestly... I don't know what I was thinking back then," he explained anyway, and Rory's eyes lifted to find the side of his face. "I suddenly had everything I'd been fighting for, and the only way to go from there was down."

"So you ignored me?" she asked, brows rising in dismayed amusement. "Way to go about keeping a relationship alive, Tristan."

He shook his head. "I never said any of it was rational," then he shrugged. "And sure. Some part of it all was the fact that I'd had to surrender my title to someone else at school." He shook his head. "It all seems pretty stupid now, but at the time it meant a lot what other people thought."

Rory nodded. "So you started to push me away because..."

He sighed, shaking his head. "Because I started seeing you as the person who stole that title from me. It seemed to me at the time that it was your fault, and I thought that if I distanced myself a little..."

"You'd get that back," she finished for him, and Tristan nodded slowly.

"Exactly." He sighed heavily as he shook his head again, still refusing to look at her. "I never thought it would cost me our relationship. I don't know what I would have done if I had known."

Rory nodded slowly, understanding finally dawning in her mind. She didn't have to like it, but at least she understood now.

"So it wasn't anything I'd done?"

Tristan looked over at her in shock, dark blue eyes horrified at the very idea. "No. _God_ no!" He turned to grasp her upper arm, his eyes insistently denying her claim. "I was just a stupid boy who couldn't understand that I had everything I wanted. It took me until I lost you to realise that fact."

Rory nodded, her eyes meeting his a moment, before sighing, rising to her feet in what seemed to be an incredibly reluctant move. "I'm sorry, but I really have to go. I'm supposed to be meeting Logan..." She could see the hurt in his eyes as she said it, hating herself for bringing Logan up like this when Tristan was so open and vulnerable. His nod was so forlorn that she felt her heart break for him as she leaned down and touched a brief kiss to his cheek.

"Thank you, Tristan. For... For being there."

He just nodded in silence as she turned and walked away.

* * *

Logan looked up at the knock on his door, putting the paper he was reading aside and moving to open the door. His face immediately lit up at the sight of the young woman standing there.

"Well this is a surprise."

Rory nodded, glancing about the room and noting it's lack of any other occupants. "Can I come in?"

Logan nodded, a perplexed smile crossing his face, but beckoning her in, indicating the couch. "Sure. You want to sit down?"

She shook her head. "No. I'm only here briefly. I just needed to talk to you."

Logan looked suspicious now, his dark eyes hesitant. "About?"

She spoke on a sigh. "I can't do this anymore, Logan."

He was confused, but only _barely_ so. She had no doubt that he had some feeling as to what she wanted to discuss with him. It was clear however, that it wasn't a topic he wanted to broach; not at all. "Do what?"

She sighed again, shaking her head and looking away. "This casual dating thing. I don't like it. It's not who I am, and I don't want to make it who I am."

"Whoa, hold on here. Where's this coming from?"

Rory offered a faint smile that was far from amused. "It's coming from me. The ravishing creature standing in front of you," and she waved her hand at herself, looking nothing if not less than pleased with herself.

"We talked about this."

He was reasoning with her, she knew. He had no desire to give up his casual lifestyle, but it also seemed that losing her was almost equally unbearable. Pity now that he didn't really have a choice about the latter. "I know."

"I didn't make you do this."

"I know," she repeated, sighing sadly. "I'm not accusing you of anything. This isn't your fault."

Logan looked nothing if not upset. His brows were narrowed, and his brown eyes looked almost hurt, his lips tugged down into a frown, bordering on a pout. "I don't understand. I thought everything was going so well."

"What are you talking about? We haven't done anything for about a week. I call and you're always busy after only a few minutes talking to me."

Logan frowned, irritation beginning to rise in his eyes. "I _was_ busy. I had some friends in town and –"

"You know what?" Rory interrupted him, his eyes narrowing further as she continued. "It doesn't matter. You're not my boyfriend, you don't owe me any explanations. I just don't want to be one of the many anymore."

"Oh Rory, come on!" It seemed he was about to dispute her when his roommate emerged from his room, extending a mobile phone she recognised as Logan's.

"Hey Logan. Cassandra's on the phone."

"Take a message," Logan answered in a tight voice, but his roommate didn't seem to take the hint that this was not the time.

"She's got a great accent. Where's she from?"

"Lanny!" Logan snapped. "Message!"

"Fine," and Lanny seemed upset by Logan's obvious irritation. "Relax, man. Geez." And he disappeared back into his room.

"Go," Rory spoke before Logan could. "Call Cassandra back. We're done here."

Logan seemed confused. "How are we done here?"

Rory just shrugged. "I said everything I have to say."

"Which is what?"

"I'm a girlfriend girl, Logan. I have boyfriends, not escorts."

"Ah." It seemed that Logan had finally got the message, and she watched with patience as he processed it all, pacing back and forth in front of her, his eyes narrowed in thoughtful concentration. It seemed he wasn't going to say anything else, so Rory continued.

"I thought I could be different," she explained hurriedly. "But I can't. I'm sorry. Maybe we can just go back to being friends again."

Logan was mad now. She could tell, because his dark eyes were flashing attractively as they looked back into hers. "Or maybe we can become boyfriend and girlfriend, right?" he demanded, and Rory just stared at him in complete and utter shock and amazement. After a moment, she found her voice again.

"What?" It sounded stupid, but it was all she could manage through the confusion that cloaked her mind.

"I get it. I get what you're doing."

She frowned at him; perplexed. "I'm not doing anything."

Logan just shrugged. "Hey, if that's what you want, then just come out and say it. But you coming in here and issuing an ultimatum –"

Now she was angry, her eyes narrowing defensively. "I am _not_ issuing an ultimatum!"

Logan shook his head. "That's not what I heard."

"I said let's be _friends_!"

Logan's reply was fierce. "That's not what you _meant_!"

Rory moaned softly, rubbing her eyes in fatigue, shaking her head in dismay. "God... I need a drink."

"All right. Fine. I'll do it."

Now Rory was _really_ confused and just stared at him with a blank expression. "Do what?"

"I'll be your boyfriend."

Rory just stared at him in amazement. "You can't be my boyfriend."

Logan frowned again now. "Why not?"

Rory just shrugged, fighting to find an excuse he might accept. "Because you _told me_ that you can't be my boyfriend."

"If I say I can, then I can."

Rory looked at him in complete disbelief. "You have a hundred girls on speed dial. You keep a second bathrobe in your closet for overnight guests."

Logan shook his head. "That's all beside the point. You came in here to say you were unhappy with the situation, right?"

Rory nodded slowly; warily. "Right."

"Fine. I've rectified the situation. Problem solved."

"No. Problem _not_ solved."

Logan sighed at her lack of faith in him. "Hey. If I say I can do this, I can do this!"

There was a knock at the door, and with a brief look of frustration, Logan paused to open the door.

"Hey Logan," the girl there – dressed in such a way that any young man couldn't help to appreciate her many great... assets – greeted him, and Rory had to laugh softly in disbelief. "Thought maybe I could get you to buy me some lunch."

"Oh geez..."

Rory stepped in. "I'm sorry. Could you excuse us for just a second? We're almost done here." Logan looked about to argue with the truth of that statement, but the girl nodded before he could say anything.

"Sure. I'll just wait out here." Logan closed the door.

"So... The Swedish flight attendants should be here any minute."

"I swear this situation has never happened to me before in my life."

"Logan –"

But he cut her off. "Rory. Do you really want to stop seeing me?" Her hesitation as he asked that question made him freeze, his dark eyes searching hers. "Rory? Do you?" he prompted.

"I..." she began, but her voice trailed off into nothing as she looked in those brown eyes she had adored for so very long. She didn't want to hurt him, and yet she knew that she had to in order to be true to herself; to be true to her real feelings. "I think I do."

Logan stepped back as though she'd slapped him, his eyes hurt and horrified at her response. No doubt he'd never been in this situation before either. "I... I guess..." He seemed lost for words for a moment, before gaining some kind of resolve, he took her hands in his. "I _don't_ want to stop seeing you."

"Okay," Rory began. "But –"

And he cut her off this time, placing a finger over her lips, silencing her and shaking his head. "So then just accept what I'm saying. I like trying new things. It's new, it's different, but I can do it."

"Logan –" but he cut her off again, grabbing her face and kissing her fiercely for a moment. Rory just froze until he pulled away, his dark eyes vehement, desperate that she see his side of things.

"Believe me," he said quietly, her face still framed in his hands, her blue eyes barely inches from his dark brown, _very_ fervent gaze. He meant every word, and it broke her heart. "We're starting fresh right now, new beginning. So you want to go grab some lunch? We'll hammer out the details."

Her eyes were pained as she replied. "Logan... I can't."

He released her instantly, as though the touch of her skin had burnt him. "But I'm offering what you wanted..." his voice was plaintive. "Why you came here."

Rory shook her head sadly as she took a step back, reaching for the door handle behind her. "No, Logan. I came here to end this," and the small gesture of her hand indicated the two of them, tears rising in her eyes and slipping silently down her cheeks. "I'm really sorry, Logan. I never wanted to hurt you. I never even dreamed that I could." She smiled at him sadly for a long moment, before pulling open the door, the girl waiting outside noting the tense atmosphere within.

"I'm done," she offered the girl as brightly as she could, despite the tears, and Logan felt something fall into the pit of his stomach and the sound of words not meant for him, and yet having so significant a meaning that it felt as though they were.

As Rory left, she heard Logan's subdued – and negative – response to the girl standing there, and her eyes lowered to the floor as she hurried away, tears falling silently into her dark hair.


	13. Do You Remember This Bench?

**Author's Note:** Holy cow, I was completely horrideous to you all! Leaving you all hanging like that. Hope you guys can forgive me!

Anyway... the basic gist of this message is to tell you that, _yay_. The story is finally over, and this is the last chapter. Thanks for everyone who's been so patient with me, and have stuck around to read this, even with the _enormous_ delays between these last few chapters. I really am terrible.

Also, I wanted to let you know that I've already written the epilogue for this story (so it'll take no time at all to toss up), and if you guys want to read it, just review and let me know. Otherwise I won't bother with it... Let me know if you think it needs one (and I promise it's a happy ending this time)!

Thanks again, guys, and enjoy!

* * *

Lanny, it seemed, was not the best of roommates, because Logan's new status as rejected 'boyfriend' material was all over the school's campus in a couple of days. Paris had actually come to confront Rory about the whole situation a few days after, looking at her as though she was completely crazy and demanding to know why it was that she had refused to "land the whale" and date the Huntzberger heir. When Rory had explained the situation as having nothing to do with not trusting Logan to commit, Paris fixed her with a steely yet contemplative stare.

"This is about Tristan, isn't it?"

Rory looked up at her friend in surprise, blue eyes hesitant when she saw the expression on Paris' face. She remembered the girl's lack of appreciation last time she had discovered her friend had feelings for the blonde ex-Chiltonite, but that had been a long time ago. Surely she was over that whole thing now.

"I don't know."

Paris watched her for a moment longer, folding her arms across her chest and looking down at the young woman for a long moment, before shaking her head in dismay. "You don't know if this has anything to do with the boy you're probably closer to than you've ever been in the past? You don't know if this has anything to do with a guy you've liked since we were sixteen?"

Rory looked away when Paris spoke, refusing to look at her even when her friend fell down to sit beside her on the couch. Knowing that Paris was about to regale her with an opinion on the situation, Rory decided to change the subject. "Where's Doyle?"

Paris looked over in surprise, the slight narrowing of her eyes revealing that she knew what Rory was trying to do, but was allowing her to distract her for the time being. Rory couldn't have been more grateful. "He's off doing something with the paper." She shook her head. "I swear that guy works too hard sometimes, you know?"

Rory just nodded in silence, because that was what was expected of her. Paris seemed to sense that she wasn't really into the conversation, and changed it back. "You know, you should really talk to him about this."

Rory purposely misunderstood her. "We've already talked about it. Logan's accepted it, though I doubt we'll be speaking again anytime soon."

"That's not who I meant."

Rory just sighed. "I know."

"So what does he think about it all?"

Rory shrugged, her concerns rising once again within her as she allowed herself to consider the situation again. "I don't know. I haven't seen him."

"At all?" Then seconds later, Paris' eyes narrowed. "Have you even _tried _to talk to him?"

Rory frowned at the hostility in the girl's voice, her eyes narrowing at the insinuation. "Of course I have." Then she sighed, looking away and shaking her head. "He's not answering his phone, and he's never home."

Paris frowned at that, looking away in confusion. "So you think he's avoiding you?"

Rory just shrugged. "It might be a possibility."

Still Paris frowned, confused by the situation, obviously not understanding why it was that Tristan would be doing such a thing. Yet it was clear to Rory. So crystal clear that she felt like crying every single time that she thought about it.

"But why would he be avoiding you?"

Rory sighed. It was the question that she'd been hoping that her friend wouldn't ask, for fear that she would actually have to vocalise what it was that was going on, and Rory wasn't particularly sure that she could do so without bursting into tears or otherwise breaking down in some hideously embarrassing fashion. Still, the question had been asked, and you never really knew if it would help to talk about the whole thing until you did. Rory took a deep breath and answered her friend's question.

"Because he knows I'm single."

Paris looked over at her sharply, her expression confused as to why this would make any difference, before understanding dawned on her face.

"And you think it's because he doesn't like you?"

Rory just shrugged. What else could it be about after all? Otherwise it really made no sense at all that Tristan had disappeared so suddenly. Exams were still ages away, so it couldn't be put down to studying, although one never really knew in Tristan's case, considering they hadn't even expected him to be in med school. Who really knew how much the boy studied?

Still, the timing was far too perfect for it to be any of that, and the probability that it had something to do with her ending things with Logan was high. It really upset her to think about, knowing that Tristan was avoiding her because he thought she'd broken up with Logan for him. In all truth, she had, but not because of the chance that they would get together. She'd split with him because it had been unfair to Logan to be with him when she liked someone else to the degree that she did. Granted, it probably wouldn't have been entirely against the rules of their uncommitted relationship, but to her – who was seeing only him – it hadn't felt right. Now it seemed that Tristan thought this put too much pressure on their friendship, and he'd pushed her away.

Again.

She had sworn that she wouldn't let this get to her; that Tristan wasn't in fact going to be able to hurt her again. Despite that, every nerve within her was crying out in purest agony when it appeared that he didn't want her anymore, not even as the friend he had assured her that he would be; no matter what. She fought the tears that threatened to come, and fought too for something to say to Paris, who sat there and waited for some response to her question.

"You know that's crazy, right?" Paris asked when she didn't say anything, and Rory's eyes moved back to hers. "Tristan's liked you for just about _forever_. The chances that he suddenly gets over it _seconds_ before you and Logan break it off... It's not possible. There's another explanation for this."

Rory just shrugged, desperate to believe it, but after all that had happened in the past with her and Tristan, she didn't want to put her hopes on that idea.

"Maybe."

* * *

Her mind was miles away, her eyes fastened on some point outside the window, not focussed on anything and refusing to be drawn back into the philosophical debate that raged through her classroom. It was hard recently to force her mind to focus on anything that didn't in some way revolved around her ex-boyfriend.

It had actually been quite a while since she'd actually thought of Tristan in such a way. In the beginning, just after their relationship had crashed and burned that first time around she had. Briefly. For maybe a month or two until she realised it was far too hard for her to think of him in such a way; to think of him as someone of her past, a relationship that had ended and wouldn't be recovered. A relationship that no longer existed.

Yet he had come back looking for her; something she hadn't known until he had confessed to her mother and Luke that this was the case at that dinner they'd all had together what felt like almost years before this day. He had actively made an effort to hunt her out back then, so desperate to regain what they'd had that he'd driven out to Stars Hollow more than once to see her. Sure, he'd never actually followed through and tracked her down, but he had made that much of an effort.

Why could it not be the same now? Why did it have to be the exact opposite?

"Miss Gilmore?"

Her mind was instantly recaptured by the debate in the classroom, all eyes expectant and looking up at her, waiting for the answer she knew she couldn't give. She'd most assuredly not heard the question, and that was clear to everyone in the room, to judge by the fact that most were slowly looking away; back to the teacher to await his reaction to his student staring into space.

"Sorry, Sir. I missed the question."

"Miss Gilmore, there are times and places for daydreaming, and I'm afraid to say my class is not one of them." Rory flushed at the disciplinary words, and felt even worse when a man who had once respected her attention to detail now dismissed her from his attention and focused it on one of her fellow classmates. "Miss Kingston?"

Rory didn't catch the girl's answer, her mind already delved once again into the unrecoverable past, and the chances – however slim – for her future with a guy she cared almost desperately about.

* * *

"God! I can't stop thinking about him!" Rory complained, throwing one of the cushions fiercely at the back of the couch, before slumping against the wall and sliding slowly down until she found herself seated on the floor. "Professor Hanson asked me a question the other day in class, and I hadn't been paying attention. I was too busy thinking about the stupid guy."

"Too busy thinking about Professor Hanson?"

Paris' attempt at humour was lost on Rory, and she simply shook her head. "You know who I'm talking about."

Paris nodded slowly, moving across the room and seating herself on the couch, looking over its back at her friend; the picture of dejection. "Look. Hunt him down. Find him. Talk to him. Sort this whole damn mess out, okay? I hate seeing you like this."

"But I can't _find_ him!" Rory lamented, her voice quavering, as though she were bordering on tears.

"God, Rory!" and Paris shook her head sadly from side to side, obviously irritated by her friend. "You have friends, you have contacts all over this bloody university! Talk to them! Show around a picture! Find out who _has_ seen him, get them to corner him and call you, or something. It's not rocket science."

* * *

It was stupid, it was childish, but Rory did it anyway, contacting all the friends that she had at the university and showing them all a picture. When any of them would see him, they'd give her a call, and she'd be right there. Problem was, no matter how many friends she had, it didn't seem to be enough, because Tristan was nowhere to be found. It was as though he had simply vanished from existence or at least vanished from Yale University.

Two weeks after setting her 'find Tristan' plan in motion, Rory called it off. It was clear that he was avoiding her at this point, and clear that there was nothing that could be done to fix any of it. He didn't want to see her, and seemed to know all of her friends and exactly what one had to do to avoid each and every single one of them.

She didn't know what it was that had so quickly scared him away, because it had appeared that last time they'd been together that he still had feelings for her. So what was it that was bothering him now? Why was it that now, when she was single, he couldn't stand the idea of being with her? Was it _because_ she was no longer seeing Logan? Was it _because_ nothing between them would ever be casual, or, and this _did_ seem the most likely of them all, was it because of how she'd left him there that day? He'd been open and vulnerable, and she'd mentioned Logan. She'd seen the suddenly forlorn expression on his face that day, just before she'd left him there. Could she really blame him for not wanting to see her after she'd hurt him like she had?

"Hey. You're mother told me you'd be here?"

Rory's head shot up in shock, blue eyes wide as they observed the face of the young man she'd been _positive_ had been avoiding her. Now he was right here, standing before her.

"You remember this bench?" he asked, as he took the seat beside her, and Rory frowned at him for a long moment before shaking her head.

"No."

"Rory," and his voice was almost condescending, and on pure instinct her eyes narrowed at him. "We're at Chilton."

She nodded. "I know that."

"We went to school here for three years together."

"I know that also."

He nodded slowly. "Okay. So how, in all those many years, did you never come across this bench?"

Her eyes narrowed further. "Are you trying to be funny?"

He grinned. "I don't know. Is it working?"

A slow smile tugged at her lips, betraying her attempt to remain annoyed with him. "It might be. I'll let you know."

He nodded slowly, his eyes wandering around their surroundings a moment before he asked his next question. "So... What the _hell_ are you doing here?"

She had to admit that to him, it might have been odd, her sitting where she was. It was bench in Chilton's school grounds, just inside a stone archway and relatively secluded as benches go. Although the bench itself had no particularly significant meaning to her, she found that this was a place that she liked to go. She wasn't sure exactly how to explain it.

"I like to come here when I want to think."

"Here?"

She nodded. "Yes. Here."

"But we're at Chilton."

She nodded. "I know."

"So... You come to Chilton, to sit on this random park bench that has no significant meaning in your past, because it helps you think?"

She laughed softly at the disbelief that ran ripe throughout his voice. "I do, yes."

He watched her for a moment, before a frown of confusion crossed his face. "Rory. You _hated_ Chilton."

She shook her head slowly, her expression serious even though it seemed he wasn't taking the conversation in such a way. "I didn't hate Chilton."

He nodded. "Sure you did. Right from the beginning. You hated everything _about_ Chilton. I remember you told me once in a fit of anger."

"But you went to Chilton."

He frowned; confused. "Sorry?"

"You said I hated everything about Chilton, and you went here. I most assuredly don't hate you."

He shot her a sarcastic smile. "Great. What a relief."

Despite her honesty, she couldn't help but laugh. "I'm being serious."

He shrugged. "So was I."

Now she really was confused, and her frown showed it clearly as her face creased with perplexity. "Huh? What? You're relieved I don't hate you?" She smiled, puzzled, at him for a moment. "Why the hell would I hate you?"

He looked surprised a moment before shaking his head. "Oh, I'm not talking recently. Just... back then. I was surprised that you never ended up hating me after everything that we went through. After our conversation a couple of weeks ago, I'm double surprised it didn't end up like that." He shook his head. "You had no reason to accept what I did as easily as you managed, and anyone else would've held it against me."

She smiled. "I just missed having you around."

"At first."

She nodded. "Yes. At first."

"But you slowly got over it, didn't you?"

She nodded again. "Yes. I did. Slowly, but it happened."

"And now?"

She looked up, surprised by the sudden question, her eyes wide with her startled confusion. "Sorry?"

"Now," he repeated. "Has any of that changed since we met again?"

She watched him carefully for a moment, feeling her heart almost pounding in her chest at the direct question and the manner in which he asked it; those dark blue eyes serious as they held hers and refused to be moved. "What do you mean?"

He seemed to sense what it was she was doing, and reached out to take one of her hands in his; long slender fingers curling around her hand and holding it fast. "I mean, Rory Gilmore, that I was wondering what you feel now. Right now."

She took a breath, bright blue eyes unable to leave his as she replied, squeezing his hand gently. "I'm definitely not over it anymore, if that's what you're asking."

A slow smile tugged at his lips. "You're not over our breakup those many years ago?"

"No."

"Really?"

She shook her head. "Not anymore."

"But it was several years ago."

She shrugged. "I know."

"And you're not over it."

"No."

"God, you're stubborn, aren't you?" he asked, watching her steadily, his eyes never leaving hers.

"I do tend to stick to my ideas and hold onto things."

"But this..." and she realised that as he spoke, he was slowly leaning in. She found she was having trouble breathing for a moment, but forced herself to speak anyway.

"What about it?"

The breathless and almost strained sound of her voice made him smile as one arm slid around her shoulders, the fingers of his hand tugging playfully at a lock of her hair.

"It was a relationship, several years ago now, that lasted – at most – about a year. And not even a very good relationship either. I think I was pushing you away for half of it."

She shook her head. "But when it was good, it was –"

"Great?" he offered, cutting her off, and she nodded with a smile.

"Exactly. And since you're a lot more mature now..."

He shook his head with a smile as his lips touched hers gently, exploring them in a way he hadn't done for years. The last time they'd been together it had all been just a climax of emotions bottled up for years, but this... this was different and it made Rory's heart flutter in her chest, butterflies coming to life in her stomach as she allowed the last few weeks to drift slowly out of her conscious mind...

She pushed him away. "Wait a second. You were avoiding me!"

The indignation in her voice made Tristan smile, and he nodded briefly before leaning in to touch his lips to hers again. "I was, yes," he murmured against her lips, and laughed when she pushed him away again.

"But... but... But _why?_" and the misery in her voice made him frown in consternation. "I thought you didn't want me anymore, and that you were scared that I called things off with Logan because I wanted to be with you, and you thought that was too much pressure, and didn't want me in that way anymore, and that you –"

But he cut her off again, this time with a kiss, though it was very brief and he pulled away moments later, framing her small face in his hands, and shaking his head in dismay, his eyes and expression rueful. "God! I'm sorry _again!_ I didn't realise... I didn't even _think_ that you would react in that way, though with your track record of blaming yourself, I should have expected it."

"What are you _talking_ about, Tristan?" and the miserable incomprehension made him laugh softly, pressing a gentle kiss to her nose, before shaking his head quickly from side to side.

"Oh you silly thing! I heard about your calling things with Logan off, and yes, I'll admit I did freak out," and when her face twisted in agony for a moment, he caught her lips again in another kiss, distracting her momentarily and silencing any miserable comments she might have made. "But _only_ because I was afraid I would move too quickly."

Her misery shifted instantly again to confusion, her blue eyes watching his carefully, her face still trapped between his hands. "What?"

Tristan realised he finally had her attention, and smiled at her, one hand moving to take one of hers again, whilst the other gently cradled and caressed the smooth skin of her cheek. "I didn't want to come after you too quickly. I didn't want to rush things and ruin them again." Then he shrugged. "And I guess at the same time, I didn't want to push myself too quickly either," he admitted. Then he sighed. "I've been such a mess for so long, that I didn't want to jump into a relationship I'm not ready for." His eyes fell from hers for the first time, deepest regret crossing his face and appearing in his eyes. "I didn't want to ruin it all a second time."

"And?" she asked, the polite and almost nonchalant question making him look back up at her in surprise. "What conclusion did you come to?"

His smile was brilliant, and had her speechless, so it was a good thing he didn't expect her to talk. "Does this answer your question?" and before she had a chance to react in any way, his lips caught hers in a fiercely desperate kiss; a kiss that desperately tried to explain, one to the other, just how much they sincerely needed her in his life, and Rory replied fervently in kind.

After several minutes, Rory pulled away, the necessity of oxygen overcoming her overwhelming feelings for her no-longer-ex-boyfriend, and she gently traced his lips with the tip of one finger, as though attempting to memorise them for when they were separated. The slow smile that crossed her face aroused his curiosity.

"What?"

She shook her head. "Nothing." But at his continued questioning expression, she laughed softly. "I just missed your mouth, is all," she explained, and a wicked grin twisted that feature she admired so much. Her finger moved with it, tracing this new expression.

"I hope that's not the only thing you've missed."

With a cry of playful outrage, Rory hit him sharply on the arm, before joining in his joyous laughter.

Happily ever after, she thought, were exactly how fairytales were supposed to end, and though she'd read her own fair share of fairytales in her life, her own... well...

It trumped them all.

THE END


	14. Epilogue: Graduation

**Author's Note: **Hey guys! Finally, and at last, the story is done. Thanks for everyone who stuck by me, and for all your wonderful reviews and messages that you sent me through the course of it.

This is the epilogue, and no... It's nothing like it's predecessor in the prequel. Not at all. Promise. I hope you guys enjoy it, and forgive me if you think it's a little mushy... This story is my baby, and I've always been a fan of happy endings.

Thanks again for everything guys. Enjoy.

* * *

"Fuck!"

Rory frowned at her boyfriend as she approached, slapping him sharply on the back of the head, and glaring at him with no real anger. "Language!"

He looked briefly startled to see her there, and she offered him a sweet smile that made the blonde young man relax almost instantly. Cocking her head to one side, she watched him as he searched with some kind of frustration through the bag he carried with him, before throwing it heavily to the floor and kicking it sharply.

"Fuck!"

"Okay. I give in. What's wrong?" she asked, pulling at the tassel on the graduation cap that she wore, watching him with a curiosity that she couldn't suppress. He'd been on edge for what felt like weeks, and was in reality only one. Something was clearly bothering him, and it was about bloody time that they got it out into the open. "Is this about my living with you?"

His frown of confusion dismissed that thought almost immediately, and she found herself inordinately relieved. When he'd asked her to move in with him, she couldn't have imagined anything that she'd wanted to do more. Spending every single free minute of every day with Tristan had seemed like the most perfect gift in the world, and it had seemed that his irritation and sudden preoccupation had begun shortly after.

"Then what is this about, Tristan? What's wrong? Tell me!"

He hesitated, his mouth open, as though about to do just that, before he snapped it sharply closed again, and shook his head quickly. "You know, I probably left it in the car," he said by way of explanation, before dashing off and leaving her where she stood.

"This is no time to worry about your appearance!" she yelled after him, but to no avail. Shaking her head in dismay, she turned to see her mother approaching with a quizzical look on her face.

"What was that about? Are you guys fighting again?"

"Mum!" Rory complained, and her mother grinned. It was true that the two kids never fought. They managed to get along like a house on fire, and from all that Lorelai could tell, neither could have been any happier. She loved that bright sparkle she saw in her daughter's eyes whenever she was around the young man, and it had certainly relieved any parental concerns about the two moving in together.

"Where's he off to in such a hurry? Is that bloody devil back for his soul again?"

Rory gave her mother a withering look. "I don't know. He forgot something. His tie, maybe," though she distinctly remembered the black tie he'd been wearing a few moments before.

"Ah well. Never mind his arrogant, pretty boy ways," and Lorelai ignored her daughter's playful glare. "How're you doing?"

Rory beamed at her mother. "I can't believe this day has finally arrived. It's finally here. I'm finally _done!_"

Her mother smiled at her young daughter as her boyfriend raced back to her side, skidding to a stop barely inches from the petite young woman, his arm sliding easily around her shoulders as he offered a quick grin to her mother. "Lorelai," he greeted her with a nod and a wicked twinkle in his eyes. "How was the honeymoon?"

Lorelai's eyes narrowed. "Now you know as well as I do that the honeymoon was over a year ago, Tristan. Give it a rest."

Tristan just offered her a brilliant grin. "But I _love_ that story. I honestly didn't know it was physically possible for one person to cause so much _damage_."

"And speaking of damage, what had you all in a state a few minutes ago. Racing around like that, you're going to clean someone up one day, and I'm not going to be the one who takes the heat for your hit and run."

Tristan just shrugged. "If I hit anyone at that speed, I think you could leave off the last part. I wouldn't be running anywhere for a while."

Lorelai just nodded. "Good point. So what pray tell, Mr DuGrey," she asked sweetly in a voice that both young people instantly distrusted. "Had you running all over the place like a complete maniac?"

Both women were surprised when an expression of what could almost be consternation or embarrassment crossed his face, and had the added effect that the eldest of the two determined to find out just what it was that had caused such a reaction. One glance at her daughter secured her assistance as she started the conversation.

"Why won't you tell me?" and she offered the pout that would never work on the young man, whereas one from Rory would have him ready and willing to do anything the younger woman wished. "Why're you being so secretive?" and her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What're you up to, DuGrey. You better not be into something that could ruin my baby's chances for that place with the Times."

Tristan was instantly horrified at the thought, which was exactly what the two women wanted of course, and his stammered assurance that he was involved in nothing shady allowed Rory to secure whatever it was he'd slid into his pocket earlier. It was seconds after she'd fished it out of his pocket however, that she wished she'd just left it alone.

"Wait... no, don't..." but Tristan could see that it was already too late, and his girlfriend was staring at the small felt box with something akin to fear and anticipation in her eyes. Not the easiest expression to interpret, and he sighed, stepping towards her and taking the ring box from her numb fingers. "I wanted it to be a surprise," he explained, opening the box and looking at the princess cut ring in the box for a minute before snapping it closed again. "I had a whole speech planned. I was going to ask you just after the ceremony..." and his voice trailed off as he ran a hand back through his sandy hair in confused embarrassment. "I guess that's not going to happen now, huh?" He paused a moment, before flipping the box open again, dark blue eyes taking in the ring once again. "Well I guess I have no choice then..."

He moved almost gracefully before her into a kneeling position, as though he'd practiced the manoeuvre a few times, and the thought made Rory smile briefly, something that only seemed to encourage him.

"Rory Gilmore. Will you marry me?"

Simple and elegant, the words made Rory freeze. She'd not been expecting this, Indeed, just the other day she'd thought herself too young to get married, glad that she and Tristan were moving slowly with their relationship; that he'd settled for simply moving in with her. It seemed however that this was not the case, and had not been where his mind had been, and she twisted her fingers uselessly before her, unsure of what to say.

For her part, Lorelai too was frozen. It was unexpected, but not excessively so, because it had become quite obvious over the past couple of years just how much Tristan had come to rely on having Rory in his life. Granted, she'd expected a least a couple of years before anything of this sort, and she, like Rory, hadn't seen it coming.

"I know you're hesitant about it, Rory," he spoke then, catching one of her nervously twisting hands in his, lifting it to his lips and kissing her palm softly. Her eyelids fluttered momentarily, but otherwise she made no comment. "I know you weren't expecting this, and perhaps didn't even think you wanted it, but I know this is right. I know that we're meant to be together for the rest of our lives. Hell, for the rest of eternity if we can beat that whole death thing," and that comment received a small smile. "And with you going to work in New York, we're going to have to be living there, and your mum won't be around to chaperone..." He hesitated a moment, wondering briefly if he was talking himself into a hole. "I guess I wanted to do this right. And maybe it's selfish of me to want it, but... I just... I want everything with you, Rory. _Everything_, and if you say yes, I promise to love you forever, and to treat you like the angel you are... although if you don't, I'll treat you that way anyway, but –"

Rory cut him off, unable to hear him say anymore as she fell to her knees before him, throwing her arms around his neck and meeting his lips in a deeply passionate, though short, kiss. Then she hugged him fiercely, nodding with tears beading in her bright blue eyes, blurring her vision. "Yes," she choked out as she buried her face in his shoulder, fighting to suppress her tears. "Yes I'll marry you."

Tristan's giddy grin was seen only by Rory's mother, but his reply made a grin break out on the faces of both young women present. "I love you," he murmured back quietly, pulling away enough to slide the beautiful diamond in platinum ring onto her slender finger. Both were so focused on the other, so focussed on the gentle kiss they shared developing slowly in depth and passion, that it took Lorelai several moments before the quiet sounds in the distance alerted her to another important event.

"Okay, okay, you guys. Get excited and mushy later. Graduation time," and when both young people rose to their feet with big smiles, Lorelai approached her daughter with her own wide, congratulatory smile. "Congratulations, honey," she offered.

Rory just laughed, her voice giddy and filled with some kind of ecstatic joy as she threw her arms around her mother in thanks. "For what, mother? The graduation or the engagement?"

Lorelai just laughed. "A bit of both, I suppose," she offered by way of reply, before releasing her daughter and turning to her future son-in-law. "Welcome to the family, Tristan."

He groaned softly in dismay, and both young women shot him a quizzical expression. "Oh god! I never even _thought_ of the fact that you'll be my mother-in-law." He shot Rory a speculative look. "You think I could have that ring back?" and he made a move to catch her left hand, his eyes steady on the ring.

Rory snatched her hand out of his reach, shaking her head stubbornly and sticking her tongue out at him childishly. "Not a chance, buddy. You're too late. I'm all yours, and there's no getting rid of me."

Despite his sigh of long-suffering, Tristan's answering smile was dazzling.

THE END


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